Well Blow Me Down!!!

OK, this wind is getting ridiculous!

Do you know why they call Chicago the "Windy City?" While most people think it's due to the lake effect winds, it's actually due more towards the politics of the city.

Now it's true that Chicago has a lot of winds. However, it's not listed in the top 10 "average wind speeds" in the U.S.

Want to know something crazy? Oklahoma City is on the list for windiest cities! Link

Given that the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon is exactly 20 days away, maybe all of this "windy running" we're doing is preparing us for some mighty winds that are due to blow in our future???

Yesterday, Chandra and I met out at the lake. The winds were insane... 30 mph with gusts up to 42 (from local Weatherman). The lake was white-capping, and it was frigid... very, very frigid! Temps were about 52 degrees when we started, and you know with the winds come "Wind Chill!"

After walking our first mile, we set out for our 8. To say we were running slow would be an understatement. In our first 4 miles, we averaged an 11.22/mile pace. That's pretty dang slow! Chandra even commented, "Are we even moving?"

The weather was a definite impact - in fact, not just for us, but for the scores of others. I would say the "crowd" was at least 1/8 of what is normal. NOBODY was out there.

Well, we pressed on. The run wasn't too bad on us coming off of a rest week - 8 miles is a daunting task, but not as bad as we had expected.

Our next 4 miles were even slower than our first: 11.36! The last mile we were headed straight into the headwind.

We're now into the final stretch of our training! Thanks for reading, and let's hope this wind-training subsides a bit to allow for faster runs... :-)