Today I ran my first 'real' hill workout! Here's how it went...
First of all, I didn't get to start until 9 am as I dropped my daughter off for her first day of school! (She's 10, but we've homeschooled until now. BIG DAY for both of us!) So, at 9 am it was already 86 degrees. When I was finished, it was 89! And, most of my first 25 minutes was IN THE SUN!!! Ugh!
I ran a warmup mile, mostly in the sun, at 11:55. (My warmups are even getting faster, though it was a comfortable pace!) Then, I did "the hill" 5x up & down. The hill is in a park and is kind of 2 hills. You start in the grass near a soccer goal and run up a fairly steep hill, down a little & then a little flat area, and then up the 2nd part of the hill. There are a few trees (so shade!) near the base and at the top. I stopped every time to walk a few seconds & get a few drinks of water. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!
When I was done with the 5 ups & downs, I was only about 1.8 miles, so I did a slow run to finish mile 2 in 15:21. (Remember, this was up & down a hill & quite a lot of water/walk breaks!)
I was really tired by then, and it was hot. But, I found a shady path to run for mile 3. I couldn't really start running again and walked quite a bit of the first 1/2 mile. I started telling myself I could run 2 minutes and walk 1. This helped, though I haven't had to pull this trick in awhile!
I tried to run most of the 2nd half of a mile without walking. I told myself the faster I finished, the sooner I could get in the a/c! I was running slow...about 13 & 14 minute paces.
When I saw I only had about .2 miles left, I decided to push myself. I've been practicing this as I have yet to have a race where I finish strong! Well, I started running faster, and faster, and faster. I hit 11:00 then 10:30 then 10:00. I tried to see a 9:something...I did! I ran FASTER! I ended up running 8:45 by my Garmin! (When I downloaded, it shows I finished at 7:40!) WooHoo! I'm learning how to RACE!!!
I'm learning to dig DEEPER and can't wait to start racing again!
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