Against the Wind

If I'm going to run roads, my favorite place is the Pennelville area. As I was trying to get in 8 miles in between work and picking Sam up for swim lessons, I figured roads would be the best thing time-wise, so I headed over to Pennelville. The wind was whipping. Hmmm, perhaps not the best choice. Oh well, nothing to do but run!

I headed down Merepoint first, the first mile squarely into the wind, and then turned onto Maquoit, where in a true sign of spring the street sweepers were out, which was great, except for the wind, and well, all the dust and sand the machines were kicking up. Yuck! By the third mile, I was out into the quiet along Rossmore, the wind was at my back and it felt wonderful! Hit sub-8 here and wondered if I could keep it up. The legs felt good and it was nice to run at a faster pace. The turn-over was a novelty after all the slow miles I've been doing this winter, even if a lot of that had to do with conditions.

The ocean views along Rossmore were, as usual, lovely. Saw several mallards in the tidal marsh river, and one bluebird near the junction with Simpson's Point Road. There, I headed back into the wind down to the ocean. Although the sky was overcast, there was a lovely bluish glow along the horizon beyond the islands.

I looked at my watch at the turn-around and noticed the average pace was reading 8:01. Well, that just couldn't stand ;) Although the final miles through the fields were open and therefore windy, I thought I'd just see if I couldn't get that reading to be something in the 7s. I won, if barely, with the watch reading 1:03:58 and 8.00 back at the car, for an average pace of 7:59. Racing against a watch is not something I want to do every day, but it made for an fun game out there on the roads today.

Saw five kestrel in the fields as I ran back toward the car. I almost thought the first was a mourning dove sitting on the telephone wires, until I saw it fly. Neat birds to watch, swooping and playing in the wind.