Today I set out with Elizabeth to do some hill training. We set out to do a warm-up run of 3 miles, then mount Great Hill up, down, and back 3-4 times. We lasted for 1 before Elizabeth suffered from a little injury so I called it quits. But we did it once, and I got to introduce her to the kind of training.
We started off with a very slow (well, it felt that way anyway) jog up to the Great Hill area. We crossed the 102nd St. Transverse so I could show her where the turnaround point was. We jogged up then down the hill then to find our starting point. Here are those deets:
In that jog I felt really wretched. My legs felt as if they had two medium dogs clutching my calves with their teeth. I wasn’t sore so much as just uncomfortable running. Eventually I warmed up but the psychic pressure was tough.
When Elizabeth and I started our hill repeats, I took off like a ROCKET! Halfway up the hill I really started to conk out, though. I got down the hill at a decent speed, then back up decently too, then back down I picked up speed. While I’ve felt faster in my hill sprints on Great Hill, turns out I did pretty well! I did it in 6:44. Last year I don’t think I ever cracked 7:00. Granted, last year I probably ran about 90 feet more (I put my turnaround point this year too soon, but it did make for nearly an exact mile!), but it was still a strong showing, much better than I expected. Here are the deets from the first (and only) hill:
Elizabeth had a pain in her shin (it’s been nagging her) and a pain in her ankle, both of which were aggravated by the last downhill. I decided we should stop, so we subwayed back after stretching. She did pretty awesome, though! I think she did the same distance in 7:16.
The weather was glorious: cloudless and cool at 64 degrees in the early afternoon. My body was probably “complaining” still from the huge mileage I did over the weekend, not completely ready or glycogen’d for running today. But I got out! And so did Elizabeth! And we finally got to run again together!