By my house, there is a massive, massive hill on the trail system. After Shortie2 was born, conquering this hill was my now-I-know-I'm-back-in-shape milestone. I spent a lot of time running and getting fit enough to run up this monster. Once I could do so, I promptly avoided it on my runs, unless I was going in the downhill direction.
Well, that hill is the start--the start--of the 10K I am doing this weekend (seriously these HRCA race organizers are total masochists). So, the past two weeks, I have gotten reacquainted with the uphill side, most recently on my long run last week. It's still tough, but now that I'm running more and actually training, as opposed to just running so that I can eat chocolate every day without gaining weight, it did seem a little bit easier than I remembered.
Last night my running group met at the base of the Hill, in order to do some hill intervals. I have been dreading it since snow cancelled the originally scheduled session last week. The workout was to do 6 reps of 90 seconds up, followed with 90 seconds of walking/jogging. We were split into our A-B-C "ability" groups and took off. We made it up, came back down, and when our Fearless Leader asked if anyone was up for a couple more reps, everyone willingly jumped right in. Astonishing! Alone, I probably would have called it good....but with the support of the group and all those other people willing to run it again, it was actually...ok. Peer pressure is a beautiful thing.
Wednesday's workout:
1 mile warmup on track, 9:00 pace
8 reps 90 seconds uphill, 90 seconds walk/jog 7:45-9:45 pace depending on steepness
1 mile cooldown, 9:00 pace
Careful of those hills, sister!
ReplyDeleteAwhile ago, I made it a goal of mine to Conquer Teh Schmatterhorn - and it was soon after this obsession of mine that I developed tendinitis that sent me to PT which I just finished like two months ago.
But, then, I'm old and you're probably young, so you probably can handle the hills better.
But be careful, sister!
And stop being younger than me!