Dr. Jack Daniels provides great training advice for “Facing the Wind.” When training in adverse conditions, particularly in the winter, runners have to face windy conditions. It’s important to understand how it can impact your training and that you come up with a plan to deal with the wind before your workout.
Be careful in setting up workouts under different temperature conditions when you’re not going around a track. On cold days, do your harder and faster running against the wind and your slower running with the wind. This way the cooling effect is kept short and is related to harder work, whereas recovery (slower running) can take advantage of the warmer tailwind. On warm days, do the opposite-run fast or hard with the wind, and run slowly against the cooling wind. This might not sound enjoyable, but it’s better to spend more time being warm on a cold day and cool on a warm day than the other way around.
This strategy for dealing with the cooling and warming effects of wind also applies to out-and-back steady runs. Start out against the wind on a cold day so that the trip home will be warmer. Running with a tailwind first on a cold day can lead to some really chilly conditions on the return run, particularly if you get sweaty on the way out. The opposite applies to runs in warm weather-go with the tailwind first and return against the cooling wind to negate the tendency to overheat later in the run.”
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