Lake Mountain wind-fest solo: I was exhausted last night, so I decided to sleep in this morning and get out for a run in the afternoon. The wind started picking up about noon and by time I got to lake mountain it was rocking my car. Oh well, I figured I would just go for it anyway. The wind hammered me pretty hard the first mile, but it was tolerable. The usual Saturdee necks were out blasting their guns and I hoped they could see me running by. The second mile pretty much sucked as the wind gusts were atrocious and I got blasted by a few walls of dirt and small rocks. As I made my way deeper into the canyon the canyon walls seemed to block the wind quite a lot, so it wasn't too bad until I reached the saddle. At the saddle it was considerably colder and the wind was biting. I had a long sleeve shirt tied on my waist, but I didn't want to stop to put it on, so I slogged on up to the summit in 1:04, just a few minutes off of my PR. I didn't stay long at all. I didn't want to push the pace too much on the way down, so after the steeper section I settled into a nice 8:10 pace and kept it most of the way down. Out of the canyon the wind was nasty again and by now sand had penetrated all of my nooks 'n crannies and I was really ready to be done, although I have to say that even with the wind it was a lot more fun than running on the track at the gym.
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