A Mighty Wind Blows

It's as if Oklahoma wind has come to visit Arkansas the last few days.  We have had serious wind gusts going on!

Yesterday I headed out for a bike ride with Britt.  We were going to do the tower route from Britt's house which meant that we began the ride heading South straight into the wind.  There were moments where it felt like we weren't moving at all.  We prayed that the return trip would be easier with a tailwind.  We got to our turn and discovered that the bridge was closed and we couldn't proceed on our route.  We decided to be adventurers and see where the road we were on would take us.  We ended up crossing the highway and taking a nice 4 lane road with wide shoulders that let us add on some mileage.  The beauty was that it took us East/West without the wind bothering us too much.  Our average pace for the 30 miles was a lot slower than normal but that makes sense with a 20mph wind as our constant companion. 

After the bike ride, I headed out for a short brick run.  Britt lives in a little valley so no matter what direction I went I had to go uphill.  It wasn't a pretty run but I got in 1.5 miles and probably half of that was uphill. 

Today I had my long run on deck and my goal was an easy 8 miles.  I have let my long runs slip over the last month and I'm feeling the pain of having to rebuild that base.  It was warm and humid out when I started at 8:45 but the wind was again blowing.  Today I was enjoying the wind because it was helping to cool me down and keep the sweat from dripping in my eyes.  It is definitely time to start taking a sweat rag with me during my runs! I know the pace was slower than it should be but given my lack of long runs and the heat I'm happy with it.  I took walk breaks when I needed to and fought the urge to shorten my run.  Oh yes, by mile 1 I was contemplating making it just a 3 mile run, then thinking of places where I could cut back to my car and shorten the mileage! It was a good mental exercise to keep going even though I didn't want to.