When life hands you lemons...

You can always mash them into a pulp with your forehead.

Sunday I headed to my track for some long intervals. I was stopped at
the gate by a guy in a respirator. He said they were spraying an
herbicide and the field was closed. Not going to argue with that one.

Run to another track.

Locked up tight as a drum. I will climb a 6 foot chain link, but this
place has 10 foot iron fences. Nope.

Run to another track.

Finally one that is open. Unfortunately this is on the top of a hill,
wide open, and completely exposed to the wiiiiiiinnnnnnnndddd.

It was windy enough that in the middle of my reps, it blew a trash can
off the baseball field and onto the track.

It was a debacle. The wind which was a straight line just bearing
down the whole front stretch. It was really all I could do to just
put my
head down and try to get some work in. I went pretty hard and was
totally caked in salt and dirt by the time this one was over, but the
times were just ugly.

2000: 6:54 (5:25 pace)
400: 76
400: 76
2000: 7:09 (5:35)
300: 59
300: 56
2000: 7:14 (5:42)
200: 34
200: 40

I will leave it as an exercise for you, loyal reader, to determine
which of those last 200s was with the wind, and which was against.

It was pretty surreal. All down the front straight it was just
roaring wind and trying to keep moving forward, then into the turn and
trying to stay on the track and not get pushed onto the infield and
then *pop* I was around and could feel the invisible hand just pushing
me down the back stretch in complete silence. Then I would feel the
heat of the sun and the sweat and then off the turn and back into it.
Crazy.

Last week about 53 miles.

m: easy 5
t: drunken man's 10k (400 @ 5k pace, 1600 at MP, repeat for 6.25)
w: easy 5
th: easy 7.5 with 3x1/5 (56,56,56), jog, 2x1/5 (55,56)
f: easy 5
s: 10 @ 7:20
s: wind blown debacle