Last night I had a pretty good hills workout! My plan called for another 40 minute tempo run, but I just did one of those last week, and it's been a couple weeks since I have done a hills workout. I recently posted the crazy elevation of my upcoming half...so you can see why some hill practice is necessary!
My plan was to do 7x hills.
It was in the mid 40s but the sun was setting and it was really windy (gusts in the 25-30mph range) so it felt a lot colder. It was especially unpleasant having the wind blow in my face while running up hill. I was beginning to talk myself into stopping my run early somewhere between hill 4 through hill 6.
Then while running down and back up hill number 6, I saw another runner crazy enough to be doing hill workouts in the dark + wind. After finishing hill #7, I was so happy to have finished what I did, and started to talk myself into running an 8th hill. Crazy hill runner guy was still running up and down that same hill...maybe his presence encouraged me to do another.
Each of the hills was anywhere from .25 to .4 miles. I was pleasantly surprised to see I maintained a sub 10:00 pace while running uphill 8 times. In fact, it was more in the 9:20-9:40ish range for most uphills, with one closer to 9:10. After I ran up the hill I walked briefly, or just slowed my running to the bottom of the next hill. So my running was fast uphill and easy for everything else.
It's weird how in the moment I wanted to poke my eyes out and go home early, yet after most of the run was behind me I felt so optimistic about it.
Total: 6.39 miles.
In case you're curious, here was my last hills run (whoops, it was more like a month ago). Actually, looking back at that run, I have to take a moment to be proud of what my heart rate looked like this time compared with last time (you should be able to click on graphs to enlarge). I did more hills, ran them faster, and my HR recovered more in between!!
8x hills 3/2/11:
6x hills 1/28/11:
And, so this post is not strictly Garmin graphs, I will share a fun new food from my favorite Wegmans. It's called the Sunrise Blend and it is a blend of a lot of ingredients I am not familiar with: wheat bulgur, buckwheat groats, Colusari heirloom red rice, whole grain quinoa flakes, and brown flax seeds.
Yay for 4g of fiber and 7g of protein! You can make it hot on the stove top, OR
you can stir some into yogurt the night before, as per this serving suggestion from Wegmans.
I ate some hot with a sliced banana and a little drizzle of honey. It's good, but not a "quick" breakfast. if made on the stove top (bring water to boil; add & let stand for 25 minutes).
Ok, good night!
That looks so yummy!
ReplyDeleteGreat job on the hills! They are a workout indeed!!
ReplyDeleteDang that's crazy wind - mad props to you for sticking it out!
ReplyDeleteGreat work! Way to stick it out! Warmer weather is right around the corner (hopefully!).
ReplyDeleteWay to kick some hill ass!
ReplyDeleteYour breakfast looks yummy :o)