Official End to Week #1 'Official' Training - Dang those hills!

Soooo.. uphill must have been the theme this weekend. Felic's uphill battle on Saturday set the mood for the weekend it seems. As a group, the three of agreed to work together to ensure we have the support to keep with the schedule that the Running Room has given. This way we'll all be in the best shape for our 1/2 Marathon in February. That being said, our long runs with our running group are scheduled on Sunday mornings.. at 8:30am!! Let's just say that this time is going to be hard to make on a regular basis, hence the reason Felicity ran on Saturday and Crystal and I decided to run together just a little later in the day.

Short version of how it went down Sunday October 31st 10:07am:

Text From Christi "Run?"
Text From Crystal "When you thinking? I'm hungover!! Lol"
Text From Christi "I'm still in bed too.. Just wondering what time you were thinking"
Text From Crystal "Was thinking about running to get my car. It's on 30th and 40th Street. How about in an hour?"
Text From Christi "Yay :( ... SW?"
Text From Crystal "Yep"
Text From Christi "So uphill?"
Text From Crystal "How about we meet at 14th and 17th by American Apparel at 11:15, just one small hill in the beginning, "

Now anyone who lives in Calgary knows that the hill up 14th is not a "small hill". Left my place at 11:14 and walked around the corner to meet Crystal. The weather was a fantastic fall day in Calgary, 12degrees above Zero and hardly any wind. No wasting time, we hit the 'pavement' immediately. As we start up the hill I mention that this hill comes in stages so you probably don't realize how long this hill is until you hit the first plateau and have to keep going, good times!!

Time to stop whining.. we get to the top of hill one and decide to walk it out a bit (more me than her), continue on to the end of 14th and turn right.. yeah, another hill. So far so awesome!! Walk again half way up that hill. If I'd known that Felic stopped on a bench on her run the day before I may have suggested that as well. Continued on through Marda Loop, up Richmond Road and through Killarney talking when we can, squealing as we almost see at least five squirrels running out onto main roads, and walking intermittently until we finally are close to our destination.. Crystal's car. Now as Karma would have it our run was only at 6.6km when we reached the car so we had to watch as we ran past our target finish line only to turn around an come back and actually finish. Just over 47minutes.. but we made it!

Not gonna lie.. it was actually a good run, a little on the slow side (understandably) but we survived the "hill training" (83m incline), figured out that running to a destination is more fun that running in a loop (you aren't trying to figure where the half way mark is) and of course the falling on the couch and laying in your own filth cause it's all you have the energy to do (as Felic mentioned in her last blog).

Week #1 .... DOWN!

MapMyRun.com | View IMapMyRun: 2010-10-31 12:03 PM in Calgary, Alberta