Apr 27

FIT:

My lower legs were x-sore this morning.  EXsore = my totally made-up term for the type of soreness that may happen the day after traditional soreness.  Your legs just feel really weird, and you want to flex out the feeling.  Anyway, it made me really want to do a hard hill session for some reason, maybe to continue flexing out those muscles.  I've only done one hill workout since graduating from high school, for a couple of reasons.

1. I haven't lived in places with traditional rolling hills or an ideal place to do hill repeats.
2. You don't get as much mileage in workouts with hills.

But I think it could really help.  I usually get passed on hills.  Maybe others are pushing hard, and to an extent, it's far less energy efficient to push on uphills.  After a certain steepness, you go just about as fast walking up as you do trying to run up.  In ultras, some people consistently walk up the hills.  So I haven't seen a particular need to work on hills.

I want to start, though, for a few reasons.
1. It can help with speed by helping with strength.
2. It makes you a better runner overall.
3. It mixes things up and is a good alternative to speed sessions.

So I did a treadmill hill workout today.  It's controllable, which is nice.

At 7.0mph:
0.5 mi warmup @ the usual 1 degree, 0.75 mi @ 5 degrees, 0.25 @ 1 degree, 0.5 @ 10 degrees, 0.5 @ 1 degree, 0.5 @ 5 degrees
At ~7.5mph:
Cooldown for 0.5 @ 1 degree

My left outer knee still probably needs some IT band stretching or something, since it was nagging a bit again today. Otherwise, no real issues.  The 10 degree for 0.5 mi portion was tough.  Let me check the equivalent paces for those inclines...

7mph @ 5 degrees = 7:19 pace (vs. 8:32 for 1 degree which is equivalent to 0 degree road running)
7mph @ 10 degrees = 6:21... oooh, that's why it felt hard!  haha.  Nice.
(Reference http://www.hillrunner.com/training/tmillchart.php)

It was somewhat hot in the gym, too.  75 degrees.  So I'm glad I was able to hit those intervals.  It was tough, but I didn't overdo anything, since this is the first time in forever.  I liked it.

3.5 in 29:37, 8:27 ave, but it was quality!

Nice.  I wasn't really feeling a speedworkout today, so this was really nice, and I'm happy with how it went.  More hill workouts to come!