Saturday, October 25, 2008

Hill Repeats - #3

After an easy 6-miler on Thursday it was back to the Hill on Friday.  Same deal as last week - 10 x 1-minute, but this time I ran them considerably faster which made for an extremely difficult workout.

Once again I started late, and it was already starting to get dark as I attacked the hill the first time.

Last week I ran the first three somewhat conservatively as I wasn't sure how I'd handle 10-repeats.  By the 5th one I started to increase the pace a bit and the last two were very quick.  This week, the first 5-repeats were as fast as the fastest one from last week!  Needless to say, by #6 I was really feeling it.  After that one I seriously considered shortening the workout to 8-reps, but decided against it.  After #7 I considered it again. . . why not do one more and bag it, after all it was quite dark now and I couldn't even see the Garmin's display w/o the back light . . . again I decided against it - needed to find a way to push through, but I was dying.  

The 8th and 9th repeats were a little slower, but not by much.  My legs were really burning the whole way up the hill - much much more painful than anything I've done on the track lately.  I re-tasted my lunch several times during this period although I never quite did heave one over the hill.  By the time I started #10 it was really dark.  I did my best to hit the pace of the first 5.  The burning in my quads was excruciating now, but I managed to increase the pace further.  Almost done, almost there.  

When I was finally able to hit the "stop" button on the Garmin, I felt absolutely dreadful.  I looked through the trees out over the hillside.  The lights of civilization sparkled against the night sky.  The only sound was me trying to somehow get oxygen into my lungs.  I dropped to the ground unable to move.  I couldn't see 3-feet in front of me now but the view was nice.  I heard the rustling of some animal in the woods behind me.  Perhaps some predator eyeing me up?  Whatever - if something attacks me, I'll deal w/ it then - I was going to be here a while . . . 

Training:

Thurs, 9/23:  lifting (upper-A, abs)  stretching rolling
                        PM  6-miles @ 7:20 pace

Fri, 9/24:  AM  4-miles @ 7:18 pace
                    PM 5-miles including 10 x 1-minute Hills

3 comments:

Grellan said...

You've just reminder me why I like hills so much - the finish! Well done on pushing through the pain and keeping your dinner down.

bricey said...

And there's me thinking of including hills in my next training cycle.... maybe not!! :)

I had forgotten that when I was younger the only session that made me want to get sick was hills!!!

bricey said...

yeah 2 years is about right. One year of running to get fit enough to start training and another year of training to get ready for racing.

1:20 ehh - I like the sound of that!! as I say only 'time will tell'....