Get out of my way!

My long runs today and tomorrow (2 hours and 3.5 hours, respectively) are the last long runs as I approach the ultra at the end of the month, and I had grand plans of exploring some new routes to celebrate this.  But real life in the form of 20+mph wind and what feels like the start of a cold (why, oh why, oh why do my clients NOT STAY AT HOME when they are unwell????) meant that I sat on the sofa for far too long this morning feeling sorry for myself (cough cough, sniffle sniffle) whilst also perusing multiple weather charts, trying to find somewhere to run that wouldn't result in me being blown off my feet.

I eventually decided that such a place didn't exist in this country and proceeded to 1) moan to Bassman about hating running and saying that I think that it's really quite a ridiculous and pointless thing to do (which made him look askance at me and say that he couldn't believe that it had taken me this long to figure that out); 2) grumbled about how unfair it was that Coach Ben is in the Algarve at the Full Potential warm weather training camp and I have to YET AGAIN go out for a run wearing three layers, gloves, and my ear warmer headband; and 3) huffed my way out the door to do one of my usual road routes, fully intending to hate this run and everything that it stood for. 


Because I expected to just shuffle my way around the route and to walk when I got too irritated by the wind, I made the decision to not look at my pace at all.  No point in demoralising myself even further.  Once I let go of the idea that this was going to be a fun run where I achieved something, I surprised myself by starting to enjoy it.  The wind mostly came at me from the side, aside from between 70-90 minutes when I was running directly into it and 90-120 minutes when I had it at my back, and it felt manageable.  My calf behaved itself.  My breathing was nice and easy.  The sun came out and there were lovely views of the snow-covered hills across the water.  There were some snow flurries.  My legs felt springy and happy.  And I overlapped with Bassman, who was just doing the last section of his own run, for about five minutes half-way through which was a nice surprise.

Bassman asked what pace I was doing and I had no idea, but I glanced at my watch and told him that I had just about completed six miles.  We carried on chatting and running, when it suddenly hit me that six miles in an hour meant....10min/mile pace.  Surely not....I didn't look at my Garmin again until I was almost home, and got the biggest shock when I saw that I was going to be at almost 12 miles at 120 minutes.  I carried on for an extra four minutes just to make the round number, and finished feeling like I could have merrily carried on. 

Just goes to prove - surprise surprise - that what holds me back the most is....well, me.  Sigh.  We'll see if I can manage to get out of my own way again tomorrow.