Mary Poppins

That's who I would have been today if I'd had an umbrella!

I missed last night's run because I was busy on my exodus from Egypt (yes, it seems that we must leave Egypt once again, or at least the 3rd graders at my son's school and their parents have to experience this once more). Check out Moses and Aaron. We even crossed the Red Sea -- made of blue crepe paper. Anyway, I had to make up last night's workout this morning. I had been listening to the wind outside since 5 a.m. (when my husband jumped out of bed, throwing the blanket over my face in the process, sure that there was a band of thieves in our house -- must have just been the windows and shutters banging in the wind). I stayed in bed for a long time, thinking maybe running wasn't such a great idea. I finally managed to get up at around 9 a.m. (really!) and it took me a long time to get out the door, but I did it. In the meantime, the wind had gotten worse.

The workout was a warmup followed by five 1000 meter intervals at 85% of my maximum heart rate. I had trouble keeping my heart rate down while running up an incline into the wind. By the fourth interval, I was just having trouble running into the wind at all (it had gotten even stronger). It pretty much sucked and knowing that I would have the wind at my back in the other direction wasn't much of a comfort.

I finished the workout, though. My times for those 1000 meter intervals pretty much sucked, but I was long past caring. On my way home, I could hear the wind howling like in a horror movie. I'm sure that running in the wind builds character or something. It certainly makes you feel dirty (especially when you live in the desert) -- I'm off to take a shower.