Two weeks ago - no it was maybe three weeks ago, when I came up with this great idea for getting some hill training in on my runs. I live in a relatively flat area, and decent hills to run on are around, but not within a reasonable driving distance during my small window of training time. But nearby is a water crossing. A water crossing at least in my part of the country is where instead of building a box culvert and keeping the road at roughly the same elevation, the road takes a big dip down into the draw that drains through there - they usually reinforce the surface of the road in the bottom with concrete vs. asphalt. This makes it fun to drive if you are a small child in the back seat who's mother likes to go just fast enough through the dip to make the stomachs of her little ones jump...Anyway I thought that this would be a good training device as well. So for three weeks, I've been thinking about it and this morning I gave it a try. It was my short run - 30 minutes, so I parked far enough away to get a 10 minute warm up, then I ran 10 minutes of hill intervals up and down, back and forth in the big dip.
For the first 3 minutes it seemed too easy. Maybe the dip was too short and i wasn't really getting the benefit of pain that I wanted, but then I started feeling it just a little but not too bad, heart rate was up legs were getting a little tired, but not bad. That was at 4:30am. About 12 hours later, my calves mainly the outsides and a little on the insides not the middle part (I don't know the terms without looking them up, but I can design box culverts with my eyes shut) started telling me that I did work them a bit earlier in the day. I'll do it again in a couple of weeks only go a bit longer on the interval portion. Next Monday is sprinting telephone poles...
On a side note, I'd like to mention that my sister's birthday is Friday. I haven't forgotten, but it sneeked up on me, so I won't get a card in the mail in time. I decided to send her a birthday wish via my blog, so I am currently composing it and will post on Friday (I hope). But I wanted the world to know that my baby sister is going to be 30. It doesn't seem possible, she was 12 when I left home for college, and I've been accused on more than one occasion of treating her as if she were still 12. Well - she's a very successful career woman who is happily married and enjoying her first born baby, who happens to still be my baby sister. I'm one proud big sister. Love you Girl!
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I have a hill conveniently located in our neighborhood. I used to run a loop that required me to conquer the hill, but when I started running further, I switched to running the ditch bank on Loma Larga instead. However, I like your idea of hill intervals. I think I'll throw that into my schedule occasionally (once I am ready to run again, that is!)
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