wind blown wimp?

I had to be at work really early today, so I couldn't run in the morning like I usually do.
I decided to run home from the city after work instead.
I live exactly NW from my office near South Station.
The winds were gusting NW up to 39-44 mph.

What I had thought would be a pleasant, late-afternoon 90-minute up-tempo run turned into one of the toughest 60-minute runs I've ever done. Not because I was running fast, though. It was that intense wind. The wind was wicked.

Running over the MIT/Mass. Ave. bridge and the bridge over the Mystic River near my house was m-i-s-e-r-a-b-l-e. If it weren't for the railing that separates the sidewalk from the river, I would have clearly fell in. The winds kept tossing me from side to side on the sidewalk, and more than a few times I banged right up into the railing. I couldn't keep my eye lids open if I kept my head straight, so I twisted my neck completely sideways to keep my face as much out of the wind as I could. When my neck got tired of resisting the wind, I turned my head straight again and just ran with my eyes closed like a zombie. Meanwhile, my body kept swaggering and jolting uncontrollably with each burst of wind. My legs were working so hard just to keep from moving backwards. It was quite a site!

By the time I got home, I had sand and dirt stuck to my lips and face, and my cheeks were red with wind burn. My pony tail was a giant knot, all tangled up from the wind.

I was bummed that I ended up cutting my run short, but I'm glad I made it all the way home (even though I took the most direct route instead of the 90-minute route I had planned). I'm glad I didn't succumb to the half-dozen times I passed by a T stop and considered nixing the run altogether and just taking the T back. But I'm still trying to convince myself that I am tough to have lasted as long as I did and am not just a wind blown wimp. Whew!

*megha