So, our Seawheeze training schedule on Wednesday
alternates between sprint drills and hill drills and today was hills (which I prefer
to sprints…I can probably chug slowly up a hill forever if I had to, but I can’t
sprint worth a damn).
The last 2 months of hill training
have been “jog up hill for 90 seconds, then jog slowly back down and run easy
recovery and then repeat until 50 minutes is up”, with the easy recovery time
getting shorter and shorter as the weeks went by (ie, the first week you only
did the hill 3 times and then had lovely 10 minute recoveries, and the last one
was run up the hill 8 times so your recoveries were only 3 minutes). You know,
the gradual buildup to hills that are a staple in half marathon training.
This morning was different though.
The drill call for the same 8 hills, but instead of easy recovery jog back down and then around the block, you then SPRINTED BACK DOWN THE HILL and then repeated…so the “recovery” was actually at a high speed.
So what ended up happening was a jog up the hill and then a
sprint back down gleefully waving my arms and shouting WHEEEEEEEEE with a vague feeling of terror that
I would trip at such breakneck speed. Which was EXHAUSTING because we never
really got a proper recovery, but was probably my favorite drill work EVER, because
the running down the hill was SO fun…it was like when running down hills as a
little kid was the funnest thing ever and running was for the fun of it before
I grow up and it became all hard and horrible because I am out of shape and my joints are getting old. And while it was exhausting because
there was no recovery time (and to tell the truth, at the end the jogs back up
were slower and slower and had more walking than usual), the sprints down the
hill were exhilarating and meant that instead of 50 minutes of varying levels
of horrible, I got 8 minutes of pure unadulterated joy in the mix. I actually
couldn’t stop the WHEEEEEEEEEEE from escaping, and I’m sure anyone driving
towards me would have wondered how someone could run with such a smile on their
face.
Anyway,
now my legs hurt in all kinds of crazy new places and I am struggling to stay
awake. So I will assume that means it was effective training and Friday's long run will be a breeze!
PS… I promised I would post about the 2
Toronto runs I did last month and I haven’t forgotten…I even have fun pictures!
They will be up by this weekend!!
