Sunset over Perth city this afternoon was (again) stunning. Orange flares on the clouds changing to pinks and purples over the course of 10 minutes, framed by the city skyline and the river makes for a great run.
Add to the scenery dead flat smooth paths, little traffic and a gentle tailwind, and it's the start of a cracker...
Then the sting: the strongest, most consistent headwind I have ever felt, from 12 to 19km! It was like looking down the barrel of a wind tunnel - no variation, no letup. What a grind.
The outbound trip was good form and relaxed stride, accompanied by an interesting evolutionary biology lecture podcast from Peter at runblogger.com, but the return found a short, choppy stride and no chance of hearing voices over the din of the wind on the earbuds. Several times on the way back I had to slow to a walk and rebuild the form from scratch, dropping my hips and keeping low, with knees bent. As I tired, I found that I was straightening slightly, and becoming too rigid and mechanical in the leg action - locking my ankles in position and staying much to tight, rather than feeling the road each stride. This tension led to a bit of tightness in my lower back on the left side at about 17km, but that has disappeared immediately on finishing - just the tension of that posture, I figure.
I was getting tired toward the end, but I suspect I was also favouring my ankles and being overly conscious of them - will they hurt? / have I overdone it? The trick to this is to stay totally relaxed, and the further I went, irritated by the headwind and wanting to get home, I wasn't.
Another discovery on this run was that the latest batch of power balls (the cocoa / cranberry ones), in the format that I made them, at least, are crap for a long run. They are much drier than the original peanut butter ones and a re real fluid suckers in the mouth - kinda hard to get down, and the cocoa leaves a dry aftertaste. Next time these will have to see an increase in the wet ingredients and much less cocoa. I could not slot one in 500m before a drink stop and get it away before a good few mouthfuls of water - the dry ingredients make it a chore to get it all in, not choke and chew it , and I found I was stopping longer to get a decent drink in order to simply swish the thing out of my mouth.
All up, it was a good run, brought a little undone by the environment. The ankles are in ice - I suspect they may have some soreness tomorrow, which will be frustratingly due to fighting the wind and losing concentration rather than the speed or distance.
Tomorrow I'm a brickies' labourer....
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