Four seasons in one run

I know I rattle on about the weather and running conditions but today was the most bizarre day I can ever recall. It went from blue sky, to white cloud, then grey clouds, wind picks up, black clouds, icy hale storm, snow, rain, then back to clear blue skies. All in the space of just over an hour.

The session was a mixed bag of 10 minutes tempo, then 15 minutes continuous hills, then finishing up with another 10 minute tempo. With the luxury of 3 minutes recovery between each discipline. Didn't sound too bad...

I was running locally and was to use my 10 minute out and back route for the tempo, and the start of the Rock Road for the hills. Normal warm-up of 3.5kms and ready for action. The first 10 minute effort and I turned on 5:12 finishing up on 10:34 (3:27/km pace). The return leg was slower due to the wind.

Then a slow walk of just over a minute to the start of the hills. The effort was to be continuous which meant keeping the heart rate up throughout. So rather than roll back down the hill I wanted to run them at a decent pace (quicker than the ascent). I was using my normal turnaround point which is about 1 minute of uphill when running well. The 15 minutes quickly passed by and I ended up doing 8 ups and downs in a total of 16:25. I'd say the uphill part was taking just over one minute and I was running down in a minute or quicker.

Then back to the tempo course for the final effort. By this stage the clouds were becoming much darker and I reached the turnaround point in 5:08. I then felt really strong and I think I was helped by a change in wind direction as the clouds continued to roll in. The last 2 minutes turned really nasty and I was suddenly running in a freezing cold hale storm. I had to put my hand up to cover my face and I considered stopping but decided to lift the pace and run as hard as I could to the end. I finished in 10:11 (3:19 pace). Very pleasing.

Then the same warm-down back to the house. After a few minutes the hale had turned to snow and I was now soaked through and all I could think of was the need for a hot shower. Then the rain came and after losing the will to live the clouds cleared to reveal clear blue skies. I enjoyed that I told myself as I got back to the house shivering...

All up 17.1km for the day.