Went out to run my "Twin Peaks" route from the East Lomond to the West Lomond. A lovely morning and, with an orienteering competition on, there was a bigger crowd on the trail. But boy was it windy. For the most part, it hit me from the side but when the track turned into the wind, well it was like hitting a brick wall! I see Oldgirl describing her run near Aberdeen today as requiring her to lean into the wind - I can entirely understand it.
If I'd thought running the trail was windy, reaching the summit of the West Lomond was something else. Just as I came over the final crest, this steam locomotive knocked me over! I didn't linger at the top and headed back down. Now, I did a bit of skydiving some years ago (I know, but it made sense at the time) and you get this sensation where your mouth fills with air (I know, you're meant to keep your mouth shut) and your cheeks blow outwards. You sometimes see Jeremy Clarkson doing the same driving an open car at speed ... but this was the first time I'd experienced this as a runner!
Now for the "Too Much Information" - if you don't like reference to bodily fluids, skip to the next paragraph - you have been warned. It was, in fact, so windy that it blew the snot from my nose! Really! I guess it went up one nostril and down the other, taking everything with it. I just hope there weren't too many brain cells among it - I don't have many of those and can't afford to lose any of them. UUURGH!
No time to ponder on the mess, though - the next gust blew me a good 5 metres off the trail. So glad to get off the top and into the lea, where everything was strangely calm.
Anyway, that was the bit I wanted to share ... The rest of the run was fine, although the wind hit me again as I reached the top of the East Lomond. I was pretty tired by then, and didn't really have the energy to fight the wind ... but at least it wasn't hitting me head on.
See the stats at connect.garmin.com/activity...
BTW - those stats are the first for this route using the Garmin Forerunner 10. It shows a distance of 13.34km compared to Nike+ which recorded 14.65km the last time I did this route. That's a heck of a difference. I guess the Nike device works on counting the number of strides on the basis of the shocks when your foot lands. If you're going up a steep hill taking shorter strides, the distance per step will be less than it would normally be. But Nike will think you're still taking full strides. The Garmin obviously uses GPS and, while that might not be perfect, I think the 13.34km is the one I would believe.
Time wise, despite the wind I took nearly three minutes off my previous time. And that makes me very happy. Even if I did get covered in snot!
W5R1
***k Me - Week 9 Run 1
A walk is as good as a run sometimes 
Wk7 R3 - tough one
R1 wk 8 done ! Whoop whoop !
