The hills are alive ...

I used to hate running hills, but really it was just a bit misunderstanding! I didn't really know how to run hills, but now I welcome the challenge. I love how they get my heart rate going, even if I'm not moving very fast, and I feel like badass. 

This morning I had one hell of a workout running hills and, aside from the humidity, I thoroughly enjoyed it! I was up early so I had time for a longer warm up of 1.77 miles @ 12:33 pace, which I'm sure made a world of difference when it was time to tackle those hills. It would have been at least 2 miles of warm up, but I stopped at home to change my shirt and refill my water bottle after .75 miles because it was far warmer than it first appeared. I then ran a total of 4.75 miles @ 11:21 pace with Todd, including hill repeats, using 3/1 intervals. He pushed the pace, and I let him because it felt great. 

We ran a little over a mile to the hilly block, then ran 4 loops of hills (about 1.5 miles) keeping the same 3/1 interval. I prefer this to doing hill repeats up and down the same hill. When we do hill repeats on one hill, we always run up the hill and then walk down hill. But it is just as important to practice running downhill as it is running uphill. By simply running loops around the block and maintaining the same run/walk interval, it more accurately simulates race conditions because I can't control where the hill will be or if I will be on a run or walk break when I encounter it. Of course, 3/1 intervals seemed to be the perfect combination for this .35 mile loop to always be on a run interval when going up the biggest hill! 

After the last loop, we ran to a nearby park (with more hills along the way) where I knew there was a water fountain because my bottle was empty and I was parched. I need to carry a bigger water bottle or start wearing my fuel belt again because 10oz just wasn't enough. We headed back to the start from there because we were already well over 4 miles. I ended up with a total of 6.5 miles including the warm up, which I think is the furthest I've run on a mid-week run! After an iffy last week, this felt awesome! My legs feel a great kind of sore this morning, but feel just fine now. 

I'm looking forward the the Corporate 5K on Thursday, and somehow getting in enough miles to participate in the April 12athon. I haven't quite figured that one out yet, but I may need to pull a Rosie Ruiz. We shall see what I can pull off.