Running against the wind

This must be a record but it's Saturday morning and I had to get up at 6 am (which I'm thinking there should be a law against) and even though it's 9 am now I don't seem to have found my brain enough to do anything very productive. So I thought I would blog some more...

As I might have mentioned (once or twice) I've been running like a fiend. I have two weeks left to go until my half-marathon in Tulsa and I've been running like a running thing on running tablets. A half-marathon is 13.1 miles and 8 months ago I couldn't even run 1. I've had a lot of work to do. I've been following a plan and building up to it slowly and on Tuesday I reached my training peak at 11.27 miles (distance courtesy of Gmaps). I've been trying to prepare for the race-day starting line-up at 6 am by running at that time and fortunately for me with the "Fall back" it is now light enough to do so. So up I got at 4 am, stuffed myself with porridge and then went back to bed (what else was I going to do for two hours?) At 6am up I got again and slid into my running gear. Unfortunately my running gear consists of shorts and a t-shirt and 6 am on the last day of October wasn't all that warm. I convinced myself though that it would be fine once I got going, so I pulled on a cap and some gloves and off I went. I knew it was cold. I knew the wind was strong. I knew it was fairly chilly but I did not realise that the first mile of this run would be heading straight into the wind. I steeled myself. I'm tough, right? I've run in London in January, how hard could this be? Pretty tough. I had to pull my cap down several times. The goose-pimples on my arms did not disappear as I "warmed up", in fact they started to go numb. Bah humbug! I'm far too stubborn to let this get to me. Fortunately my course then took me in the opposite direction. I was flying! Heck, I even took my gloves off. But alas, my course is circular and eventually after mile 6 (when I really could have done with the wind behind me) there I was, running against the wind again. Running against Oklahoma wind isn't all that fun. Oklahoma is flat which means there are no hills to break the wind up and running against it is a bit of a mission. The gloves went back on and my face fixed into a determined glare such has never before been seen. I began to notice that I couldn't really feel my arms and that they were perhaps a little redder than their usual complexion and that perhaps my thighs were a little chilly to the point of numbness. Only 3 more miles to go. I'd be fine. I was fine. Cold and tired but fine. Later in the shower, after the itch of cold-skin getting suddenly warm had subsided, I noticed a darker complexion on my legs and arms, wind-burn I suppose. I don't think I've ever had wind-burn before, it's quite the novelty. I think I might buy some winter running gear today though, I'm not sure how much novelty I can take...

From now on it's taper time. Tomorrow I'll cut back to just 9-10 miles and next weekend I'll only do 5. I love being able to talk about the distances for my runs as "only" or "just" something I never dreamt I'd be able to run. I remember back in April whooping as I made it around Walpole Park for the first time (0.8 miles) and later almost bursting into tears with joy at my first mile, now a mile is too easy even for an easy day. I feel great, strong and powerful. I imagine myself on race day crossing the finishing line without even once having had to break into a walk. I could go nuts over the next couple of weeks having to cut back on my mileage though. I'm not sure Amanda's looking forward to it...