60F, clear & starry, extremely windy (20 mph sustained, gusts to 40 mph). Hill repeats: 6 x 1 min up (and into wind, ug), 2 min down. Fun when the wind was behind me, discouraging when the wind was against, and tricky the rest of the time. Side-wind: watch out that the foot in the air doesn't blow into the other leg. Gusts: one came so suddenly I actually started to topple forward, as if pushed by someone's hand. Little twigs and dry leaves whapping me at 30+ mph every few seconds. Not my favorite running conditions. As I mentioned in the past, my neighborhood is situated at the doorstep of the Snoqualmie Pass. Cliff Mass describes in his Tuesday blog entry: "This is a good example of something books often get wrong...usually the strongest winds are in the exits of gaps and Straits...not in their middle or where they are narrowest." And look at that temperature! There goes the little snowpack we had built up. We'll have to start over again after this nonsense passes. The hill repeats... just plain pathetic. I wandered all over during my warm-up, looking for a suitable hill that might be somewhat sheltered, but none were to be found. Steep and straight into the wind was how it felt, and the splits are just too embarrassing to print, though you can calculate them from my VO2 miles if you really want to know how slow I was. | 