Running for Fun: Sisyphus took my stone....

I've had a few great runs over the past week. While I was able to hammer away at my runs, it has been such a great change to get outside consistently to run. Spring is definitely close - I'm glad that John decided to officially pronounce winter over back on Friday, Feb. 26th at 11 am. I haven't touched a treadmill since. After this winter, the next time I'm on a treadmill for any reason will seem to soon.

Last Friday, I had something new on my running plan:

8 x hill?

60-70 seconds up

20 min warm and cool

Huh???? I understood the 20 minute warm-up and cool down - what was the whole hill thing - how hard should I run?

In an email - here is what my coach provided for an explanation - "For Friday's hill workout, depending on the hills that you have access to, ideally a hill that takes 2-3 min. to climb, moderate grade of uptempo, sustained running, probably T pace or slightly faster effort/breathing. Run the hill and jog down very easy, low impact and then run the hill again. You should fully recover on the downhill. The purpose of the workout is to get a harder, nearly anaerobic, strength stimulus while not beating your legs up too bad."

So I took off and found a hill. The hill is about .15 miles long and has an elevation climb of 250 ft. That is about a 30% grade. Although short, the hill is pretty ominous when standing at the foot and looking up.

I ran up the first time - 70 seconds, hard.

I do this again, and again, and again until I reach 8 times total.... and I am noticeably working harder to get up the hill in 70 seconds.

Afterward, I realized that I must look like an idiot just running up this steep hill over and over again. I guess it could have been worse if Sisyphus wouldn't have stole my rock....

After last week, I have a scheduled easy week this week. The highlight of this week was a 40 minute tempo run. I had a 1.5 mile warm up and 1.5 mile cool down with the middle 6 miles fast. (Bring it Tony!!)