More Wet Weather

Distance 41.7km [total: minimalist 329.1km: Barefoot 5084.0km] Week38

 

Monday 16-Sep.10km

Having to rewrite this entry a second time due to a blogger glitch wiping it out is very annoying but there's not much I can do.
Winter came back to visit for a day and as I headed to the beach there were threatening dark clouds being pushed towards the beach by the strong westerly wind. When I parked up at the beach and scanned up and down the beach I could see that it looked like I would be lucky if I got through the run without getting caught in the rain at some point. That point came around 2km after I set off, just south of Henley the wind picked up and the rain started. I seemed to be the only one out as I looked down the long concrete path by the beach. The rain was blowing horizontally and stinging my face and legs, strangely though my feet were warm as there must have been some residual warmth in the concrete and that was warming the pools of rainwater. The rain stopped by the halfway point and just left the wind blowing. The wind gradually dried me out as I ran back so that by the time I got back I was almost dry, may hair was a bit awry by that point though.

Friday, 20-Sep. 11km

After a week of cold rainy weather this appears to be the best day of the week, light wind and a clear sky. It would have been a great run except that I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom for most of the way around which made it a bit uncomfortable. It also got a bit chilly as the the sun edged towards the western horizon. I was running a bit late as I left work later and didn't set off until just after 5pm. Sunset is at around 6.12pm at the moment. I got a bit of a twinge in my right calf that I will keep an eye on.

Saturday, 21-Sep. 12.5km

This was supposed to be the start of the good weather, I checked the forecast on my phone and noticed that they had rain due at around 10.30am but a day of 24C, surely not. The sky looked blue as I emerged from the house but far out west was a line of black cloud.
I decided to run without having breakfast today as it would push me too late to get out. If I ran at a lower heatrate I should be ok, just burning fat rather than carbs.
It took me a while to get the engine revved up, the feet and ankles felt stiff so I just chugged along confident that I would start to feel better once I'd warmed up. It seemed to work. By the time I reached the breakwater at Semaphore I decided that I would turn back as I was feeling hungry and the black clouds had moved much closer and were only a couple of km away. I had the breeze behind me now which I was thankful for as the hunger was getting to me. About 1km from the end the the weather front hit, first with a strong wind then, just as I arrived back at my car the rain came down, superb timing. It rained for around half an hour then started to clear. Who knows, it may even get to the 24C forecast today.

Sunday, 22-Sep. 8.2km

Is this the start of spring? Perfect running day, sunny, not too hot, not too cold, light breeze, just right. After a 75 minute gym workout I got to the lake at 10.30am and did an un-monitored 8.2km around the lake. The legs started to feel a bit heavy on the last kilometre from the weighted lunges I'd done earlier. I still have not managed to get much speed training in. I used to be able to run the kilometre stretch towards the end in around 4 minutes but I have slowed right down and would be lucky to cover the distance in 5 minutes. Maybe I shouldn't worry, I guess at 50 I don't need to be racing people half my age.

Neil