Kill the Hill

It's funny...Bill and I were discussing my training strategy Monday morning and the things that I need to do to improve my time as well as have a good race. I divided it into the mental as well as the physical. Bill had a theory that I needed to push myself more on the physical. I got really mad at first (but stepped back from myself, took a deep breath) and explained to him logically that I DO push myself. He was like "yeah but do you push yourself to your limits?" Now, to be fair to Bill, this is a fair question. I do tend to get into a workout rut, and I did notice that when I was training with Roncker's I would finish a race and be like "Oh wait, I can run that fast?" And then decide to push myself harder in practice, which wasn't even really that much of a push for me. But I convinced him that I was dying at the end of every hill and speed workout during Team in Training, and that most times I was really questioning whether or not I should even be in the advanced group because I was left in the dust so many times. (It truly is embarassing to be the last one up the hill when you are giving it your all).

This conversation probably happened because we were getting ready to do our first hill workout for the Flying Pig.

For our training I have interspersed a LOT of hill workouts. This is totally what I was lacking last time I trained on my own.

Yesterdays was 3 repeats of Harlem Hill. I know. It sounds wimpy, but it was actually quite difficult because Harlem Hill is a killer. It didn't help that we were running the hills clockwise, which I think is tougher.

This consisted of running FAST up the first hill, recovering on the downhill, running FAST up the hill around Lasker Pool (which is forever winding and long) and recovering across the 102nd Street Traverse to do the whole thing again (and again).

At the first hill I took off and Bill was like "What?! THIS is how fast you run?" He did catch up to me on that first hill, but I think the rest of the time he thought I was crazy. It was also the first time that I finished a workout significantly in front of him. At the end of the speedy part, my HR was up to about 179 each time, and then it would drop to 130 during the recovery.

I was very very very tired. But I also felt like I pushed myself and that I had a good workout, and that I was that much closer to being better at the Pig.

PLUS I convinced Bill that I can continue working on the physical part of my marathon as is, because I DO push myself :)

The whole workout (including a short warmup) was 5.1 miles and we finished at 48 minutes. I think that this is actually pretty good, considering that we walked a good portion of the recovery.

Hill workouts stink, but they do always make me feel good at the end.