So, one of the pluses to living a mere tens of miles from the Gulf Stream is that winter’s a constant battle between cold air shipped down from our lovely neighbors to the north and warm, tropical air on its last legs. The classic Nor’easter stems from this phenomena – warm, wet air slams into frigid, arctic air, and I get to go do some XC. Yeah, baby.
Anyway, this evening’s run was a spectacular feat of endurance. There was a tropical air mass moving out of the south, pushing the cold air back up where it belongs. The consequence was that, despite a clear sky and fabulous sunset over Jamestown, there was about a 35 knot wind blowing out of the south during this evening’s 5K.
The first part of the loop wasn’t bad at all – wind was at my back, etc. However, at the turn – man. Y’know those winds that just kind of stand people up? This was one of those. I totally felt like I was trying to run uphill even though the ground was sloping back down towards the bay. There was spray coming off the waves at the seawall – absolutely amazing.
As I write this, I just swung by the car, and the temp is up in the high 40’s, up about 10 degrees from this afternoon’s run, which was up about 15 degrees from this morning’s commute. When I left the office this afternoon, felt the breeze, and saw the waves on the bay – man, that sealed the deal.
Anyway, two days down this week. I feel good!
It has not been too bad up here in Maine, yet, but don’t worry. We’ve been working on getting that colder weather going, and we’ll be sending you our surplus pretty soon now…
I don’t miss those cold blasts of ocean air along the beach run! But I do miss the amazing views :(