Week 3 - The Hills are Alive - Day 20 of 112

The floor

Blown away!

Hills above Machrihanish

Another trip down to Machrihanish to finish off the floor and do some general DIY for the forthcoming season was met with some of the worst weather that I have experienced down there. No rain but the wind was gusting terribly. Put off the 5 miler hills session until the wind eased down but it didn't. I could barely stand up let alone run into the wind. Never have I run in such a wind. The first part of the run had me running against the wind. You lifted your leg and unless you forced it forward you were left jogging on the spot. By the time that I reached the hills  above Machrihanish I was running at a 45 degree angle. Thankfully the road up the hill was with the wind and this  helped me greatly. Hills and headwind would have been just too much. As it was the hills on their own just about cracked me. The photo was taken last summer but gives a pretty good impression of the elevation. I was doing the death shuffle as I reached the summit at around 580 feet. The HR had maxed out at 175 and I was barely walking. The breathing was laboured and by the summit I was gulping for air like a freshly landed salmon.  The turn around for home was at the summit and the jog back down the hill to lunch and some pizza was well earned. On the way back along the beach the gusts of wind almost topple me into the road. Running with the wind was just as hard as running against it. 

Numbers - 4.89 miles - 40.36 mins - 8.18 pace - HR 152 avg bpm - cadence 83.4 rpm

Bit blowy