Cheating Wind

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This afternoon's 12 km run along the beach, Santos

12 km 

1:03:24 / 5.17 pace

25C, very windy and sunny


The technology I use to track my runs - and which produces such things as the picture above - tells my that the wind was blowing at 16 kph as I ran east (upwards, in the pic). Experience tells me that it was probably faster / stronger than that. The first six kilometers felt like I was running uphill. 

Hill running and running in the wind have something in common, psychologically speaking. Running uphill or into a headwind make me feel somehow cheated. I'm putting in all this effort and running slower than normal, while getting way more tired than I should be, if it were not for the slope / wind. But that thought can be cheated, or reasoned out of my mind by remembering that sooner or later my course will run downhill, or I will change direction and the wind will be with me. Of course, being the pessimist I am, I will also think that maybe the wind will drop off when it should be helping me, or maybe I have run up a hill and am now on a plateau and some geographical freak will mean I never get to run downhill. At least not on that run. 

But I did get the tailwind today and having averaged a pedestrian pace of 5.31 for the first half of the run I finished at an average of 5.17. The wind on the way home was so strong I felt like I was running downhill at one moment, which was a funny sensation on a beach. It's not the first time that has happened. For some reason it occurs quite a lot when I run at night on the beach. I have the distinct feeling I am going downhill - actually running down a hill, not some kind of moral or physical decline. I think it has something to do with not being able to properly see the ground I am running on. 

Pessimism is a powerful force, though. It doesn't matter that I turned a 5.31 pace 6 km run into a 5.17 pace 12 km run. No. That was obviously only possible because of the tailwind. The fact that the first half was into a headwind is irrelevant to me as I finish. The overriding sense is that the run was not good and I was cheating by using the wind on the way back. In any case, it was still too slow overall and the wind is no excuse. 

And this is what I do for fun. 



 











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