It's not the heat, it's the humidity

"It's not the heat, it's the humidity."

That's what we say about our Virginia summers. There's a lot of truth to that statement, although even a dry 90 still feels pretty stinkin' hot to me. In the wintertime, it's not the cold, it's the wind.

This winter has been particularly cold. Not record-setting cold, but very long stretches of below-normal temps. It's pretty common to have 60 degree days during the winter. Just not this winter, it seems. On Tuesday it just about cracked 50, and I wore shorts and a t-shirt to run in. By yesterday it was back to the 30's, we got some snow, and today was cold again.

And windy.

In my particular microclimate, snugged up against the base of the Blue Ridge, we get some pretty serious winds. It's just relentlessly windy. When I popped out at lunchtime for a quick run, I just could NOT handle the wind. It wasn't even that bad. Often this winter, certain spots on my route where the wind is concentrated, I have to lean against it hard just to keep my footing. Today was nothing like that, but in the sunshine, I alternated between feeling warm, and then having the warm ripped right out of my body by an arctic blast.

My intention was to do the five miles on the program for today, and add in the hills I was supposed to do on Tuesday, but didn't get around to. I figured I'd do about a 1.5/2 mile warmup, do the hills for about another .5-1, then do a 2 mi cool down. It didn't shake out like that at all.

First, the cold and wind. So demoralizing. When I set out to train through the winter, I didn't foresee that I'd be training in ACTUAL winter, I figured I'd get our garden variety Virginia winter (see 60 degrees, above). Second, all that winter has kept me indoors a lot. I'm fighting a little SAD right now, and getting motivated is hard enough without feeling physically brittle. Third, I picked the wrong hill. Way too steep. My hill perception is all messed up (see base of the Blue Ridge above). And finally - speedwork AND distance? Am I nuts? Yeah, I am. There's a reason that Coach Mark puts the speedwork on the low mileage days.

Blah blah, aches and pains, blah blah, tired legs, blah blah, I did my hills, put my tail between my legs, and hobbled home.