Tuesday Hill Work

I've been reading Ron Daws "Running your best : the committed runner's guide to training and racing" (on advice of a Michigan running buddy) and I have been intrigued by the Lydiard-esque hill training he recommends. In an ideal world I would have time to do a huge build up for Philly and work on the appropriate systems for a few week blocks etc but since I don't have that luxury I am just trying some new stuff to see if I like it and if I will want to use it in the future. The next few weeks I am trading out track for hill workouts since somewhere below 10k pace is where my foot gets angry. I also buy into the statement Daws makes that hill training may be one of the only true shortcuts to fitness and I am willing to take a chance on it since Philly has some hills anyways!

With it getting dark early now I decided I would just find a decent hill on the lunch route to do this.

I actually had to take the book back to the library so I kind of winged it yesterday and did a sort of modified workout. I skipped the bounding type stuff and just did some hard effort repeats up and down the hill getting a bit longer with each repeat. I ran hard up 4* followed by about 2 minute recoveries and then down hard 3 times with about a 200 meter push at the bottom flat section followed by about 90 second recoveries. The 4th downhill I only made it halfway before the group caught back up so I just did half downhill and headed directly back up hard and followed that with a 30 second stride to finish it out.

I was giddy like a schoolgirl for this workout. I miss pushing myself hard and it was fun to hammer up and down the hills feeling powerful again while not doing any damage. Hopefully Thursdays tempo is just as fun!