Wind: A Love-Hate Relationship

There's a storm brewin' here...I just got back from a short run....much shorter than I had planned.  Wind is sustained at 20 mph and gusting to 40 mph.

At one point I felt like a cartoon with my legs running but not making any forward progress.  It was difficult to walk....running was very hard!  Most of the time the wind at my back feels good...but this was blowing so hard, it was even difficult running with the wind!

I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore.....

~Mike

You may keep your love-hate relationship.

I have nothing good to say about the wind.  I find it cruel and capricious, teasing and tauting.

As I ride directly into the 30 mph wind, I curse it, moving only 9 mph in the aero position.  The wind responds, "just wait until I am at your back."  I pedal on.

I make a 90 degree turn, and the cross-wind threatens to push me into the path of an oncoming tracter-trailer.  As I try to adjust to the wind, and lean into it, it suddenly stop blowing, and I narrowly escape a crash.  I rage against the wind, and again, the wind teases, "just wait until I am at your back."  I pedal on.

Finally, the point I have been waiting for, another 90 degree turn, and there it is, the wind, at my back, I accelerate to 30mph while staying in Z1.  After all my work into the headwinds, fighting the cross-winds, the bliss of effortless speed falls over me.   But alas, after only a few brief seconds of delight, the wind shifts to a new quarter and my battle begins again. . . .

Now, someone please expain to my why I signed up for a HIM in Kansas. 

Nice piece of description of riding on the flats.

 This hills in this part of Tennessee run southwest to northeast.  This time of year the wind blows straight up the valleys out of the southwest.  Most county roads run the same direction as the hills.  There are a few windy steep roads that run east-west across the ridges.  So you have your choice, you can pick a route that goes out and back on the flat (or as close as east Tennessee gets to being flat), going into the wind one way and against it going the other.  Or, you can go east and west climbing up and screaming (literally) down the other sides of the hills.  Or, you can make a loop and get some of all that fun.

Being honest as I can be, I'd rather have the terrain here that there despite your poetic description of yours. 

You need to start a blog or write for a magazine or something as you capture much of what we all feel in your words so well.

It's windy too here in MA..see that pales in comparison to what you wrote 

Blogs- Either use the logs here on BT (easiest and best) or some other site like Blogspot https://www.blogger.com/start (not as good since we'd have to leave BT to read your stuff). 

I thought about your post re: wind today while we were out on the bikes.  It gets pretty windy here in MN too and today it was from the north.  Our route was an out and back with lots of turns and no getting out of the wind.  On the "big hill" we had a straight headwind.  At least I survived. 

Hoping the wind settles down for us all this week.

Pattie

Use your exercise log.  There's a great big space on the bottom of the page to write all kinds of stuff.

I love your writing and would read your blog regularly just because you do such a great job painting expressive pictures with the words.