Street Hill Blues
I ran my five mile Twin Peaks route today in 47:01. I was hoping to do the hill run in 45:00; I’d like to be running nine minutes to the mile even on the hills. But that might not be realistic right now. I pushed really damn hard and that was all I could do. My legs were hurting pretty bad up the hill, probably because I ran yesterday and then followed that up with a swim (where hammerhead‘s wetsuit made a world of difference!) and squats at the gym. That time is actually 45 seconds slower than my PR on that particular route. According to my monitor, my average heartrate was 180, so I think I probably shouldn’t have tried to push it any harder than that.
I pretty much consider myself in winter season right now; I need to work on long slow distance, just taking it easy and building my base, also getting to the gym and working on my core, maybe put a little tone on these arms. But I still want to do an occasional intense hill workout like this.
I did the first 1.6 miles (all uphill) in 17:23, and the final 3.4 miles (mixed downhill and some flatter terrain with a couple more small hills) in 29:38. That’s still a 10:52 pace uphill and 8:43 down. Even in the “off-season” I know I can do better than that. It was a good run, but I know I can do better.