Tuesday's Tempo Run: A Wind-Aided "Half Dow-Minus" PR

This was the full tempo run (a mile warmup in my neighborhood and then my "Dow Course", for 5¾ miles total) with the mile warmup run slower to concentrate more on hitting lactate threshold pace for two 2-mile segmengts. It was warm, 67°F at 4AM, with a fairly strong SouthEast (Gulf) wind. This made the first 2-mile segment with the wind. The "Dow Minus" two-mile splits were 12:20 and 13:18. The wind-aided 12:20 beat my previous all-time PR for a "Half Dow-Minus" by 17 seconds. The "Dow Minus" total was a season's best 25:38, but that's still well off several runs in the Spring of 2004 and 14 seconds off my personal world's record.

With apologies to Carnot and my thermodynamics professors, here are my Laws of Running in the Wind:

Regis's First Law: When you run into the wind you'll be slower, except if it's so warm that your pace is limited by heat dissipation.

Regis's Second Law: On a windy day, you'll run slower even on a loop or out-and-back course; you'll lose more speed running into the wind than you can ever gain in the opposite direction running with the wind.


I guess I should be happy coming within 14 seconds of my "Dow-Minus" world record.