Hold da kæft – Danish for holy merde

I knew it was cold, drizzling and a bit windy, and I did dress sensibly for my run – dug up a long sleeved cotton t-shirt and wore knitted gloves and a scarf.

Everything was OK when I set out, for the first 9-10 minutes I ran along a street sheltered from the wind, is was still only 45F and windy. After the 9-10 minutes there is an incline – not terrible steep – no such thing in Denmark – but quite long it tacks me across the main railroad tracks going into Copenhagen, then there’s a sharp turn to the left and it’s down hill all the way to the water.

Well today when I turned left I turned directly into the wind, and got no benefit from the down hill – the rain was driving by now and I thought it’s gonna be a long way home.

I struggled on and ran along the sea wall a couple of times having to jump out of the way when spray was thrown across.

Then I got to a the statue of Denmark’s most famous explorer – Knud Andersen who for some reason stares at Sweden instead of north to Greenland and the Arctic that he explored – the road curves past him, and at that point I realized I hadn’t been running directly into the wind. Mid step – in air – I felt myself being driven back from the wind, five more steps and I was done – had to walk.

I only walked briefly and then crossed the road and cut up on street to shelter. For some reason I have the hardest time getting back in stride from having walked – not if I have to walk a couple of steps before crossing a road or things like that – but when I’ve stopped because I just couldn’t go on.

So the rest of the way home was tough – even when I got to the point where I had the wind behind me.

I finished the run with just the brief walk and I most have been on to something great I finished almost a minute faster than my best time for the route – actually dead even on the 6km/h that I’ve been aiming for.

The route is 4.15K – soon I’ll run 5K faster than 30 minutes.