Crazy run in very high winds
The city I live in is often referred to as "the windy city" and while this is actually not about weather winds but rather, about how rumors would spread so fast here hundreds of years ago, a lot of people rightfully assume that Chicago is really windy (in a weather sense).
Because we are on Lake Michigan and therefore have nothing to block the winds for however many hundreds of miles it is over to Canada, things can get crazy windy here to the point of danger. It likely would be a lot more dangerous if there were any trees here but I digress.
src
We haven't yet reached the point where it is blisteringly cold AND windy, but trust me, that train is never late. It's coming, believe you me.
Yesterday I got a warning on my phone about dangerously high winds and I don't remember exactly why, but I thought to myself "would David Goggins stay at home in high winds?" and the answer to that is clearly no. It was raining on and off as well and I live in Chicago where it is already pretty cold, but I thought it would be a nice challenge to see if I could get my 5k in anyway.
The short answer is "I didn't get it in" but I did come damn close and only stopped because the rain shifted and it was basically a waterfall. My watch is waterproof and I put my phone in a ziplock bag but my bluetooth headphones, the only pair I have found in years that I am happy with, are NOT. It was raining so hard that I was concerned about them getting swamped and shorting out because of the amount of rain that was falling on me.
The fact that the rain was coming in sideways because of the winds was just an added and perhaps unwanted bonus.
This probably wont be so surprising to the grizzled athletes out there, but this run was SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult than a regular run would be. I was fighting the winds just to remain upright, and the winds didn't seem to go in any sort of particular way but rather in all ways at once or shifting from side to side on a regular basis.
This adds a whole new element of challenge to a normal 7.5 minute per km run. My shoes were also soaked almost immediately and I had my trail shoes on, not my running shoes. I had forgotten that these trainers of mine have a bit of an issue with "toe crunch" and it was about 3 km before I could tell that the water in my shoes combined with the "crunch" that if I didn't stop soon, I was going to have skin loss between my smallest two toes. That stuff hurts man, and it takes a long time to get over.
I think it was wise for me to cut it short even though I only had 800 meters go to to accomplish my Goggins 5k.
Given how much additional resistance I had in my way I was kind of happy with my overall pace which was about 20 seconds faster than a normal mid-day run where I am competing with 1000 other runners for space. I suppose that is where the real difference lies. I had the trails to myself because all of those cowards decided to stay home instead of being hardcore like me.
Was it a good idea? Well, I actually kind of enjoyed it so yes, yes it was. I think there is a much greater opportunity to hurt my feet though because of the fact that your boots are going to get wet.
Will I do it again in the future? Absolutely, but next time without the trail shoes.