I set out for my long run today around noon.  My training plan said I was supposed to run 8 miles, but on the drive to Portland, I kept forgetting that and thinking that I was supposed to run 10 miles.  So thanks to my Garmin 305, I kept going and ran the 10 miles I wanted to run.

The weather was about 28 degrees and sunny. The wind…well…it was definitely blowing. I’m guessing it was around 15 mph, with stronger gusts.

I started near the Ocean Gateway and ran down Washington Ave to the Eastern Prom.  From the top of the hill, I could see Back Cove where I was headed.  Back Cove is a beautiful 3.5 mile trail loop around a tidal cove.  It is such a great, car-free place to run.

It was a windy run up to this point, but I was at the top of a hill, so I figured when I got to Back Cove, the wind wouldn’t be so bad. In the picture above, it doesn’t look choppy, right?

Wrong. Very wrong. The minute I got to the cove, the wind was blowing hard. There are white caps on the water.

I was quite happy to see that the path ahead was dry, unlike last week.

Luciky, when I got half way around the loop, the wind died down and the seas were calm. I tried to run a bit faster here to make up for my slower pace in the wind.

I looped back to the Eastern Prom, did another loop around Washington Ave and ended the run at the bottom of this hill. It was a stunningly beautiful day and I was so happy that I could go out and run 10 miles today.

I am training for a 10 mile race on Feb 6th, so my plan is to run 10 milers every weekend until then so it becomes a bit of a habit to just go out and run 10 on a Sunday. That way on race day, it will seem like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.