I've probably written about this before, but never mind. I love running in storms. I read once about (illustrating the madness of the colonial Britons) a group of harriers who only ran during Hong Kong typhoons. It may have been fiction (was it Le Carre?) but it ought not to be. Had the me of now been there then, I would have been out there
Extraordinary weather the last couple of days in Sydney. Apart from the roofing iron blowing around the back garden on Friday, which was perhaps a bit too scary - if you were hit by one of those you'd be dead and there'd be no way to avoid it even if you saw it coming - Saturday AM was perfect running weather.
In the wind, every lap of the oval is different. There was a women's football match in progress: scoring only occurred at one end. Tarpaulins snapped and cracked at apparent random. The air turned grey; then clear again.
I can never really feel that the wind is behind me. My watch tells me I'm going faster than expected, and I can know it's easier, but there's no reversed equivalent to the running through water sensation of a good headwind. Running into a headwind is an excuse to run harder; when I'm running at a fixed pace designated less than race pace there can be a feeling of frustration but the need for the extra work to maintain the pace into the headwind is satisfying. It feels like the the kind of effort training should be. Although if it went on too long the virtue would be quickly replaced by exhaustion.
Sometimes the joy of running is the rhythm that lets me forget that my body has to work to make the movement happen. Today, though, is a day to relish the work.
