The type of runner that sees a steep hill and says, 'no way', and avoids the hill....and the type of runner that embraces that hill, saying, 'this makes me a stronger runner.' My husband made this little quote up. I admit, I used to be, and still may be at times, the first described runner ;) BUT, I am learning to be the second runner more and more every day.
Last week was our second week of prescribed hill repeats from our coach. We have a hill a few miles from our house that Matt likes to call "The Beast." Yeah, does that explain it well enough? ;) It takes about 1 minute or maybe longer to reach the top of the hill. This may not really seem like a long amount of time to most. Why don't you just try it, OVER and OVER again. Sprint up it as fast as you possibly can, only think you are through the pain, for it to steepen up even more to the point you feel like you are hyperventilating. THEN, sprint down the hill, using fast strides, and when you get to the bottom, then break out the wind sprints for 1 minute x 2. Then, as if that wasn't joyous enough, do it all again multiple times ;) Did I mention it was 5 am and still dark while we are doing this? This is after warming up for around 5 miles beforehand. It totals up to be almost 10 miles when we are finished. (uh, "finished" can be taken many ways :)
I'm sure we are known as "The Crazies" around these parts ;) We only get up that early to avoid traffic on that route. Otherwise, running the hill wouldn't be possible.
We are getting stronger, nonetheless, and hope to conquer these hills with a little more ease by the end of August, when Ironman Canada nears ;)
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