Hill Repeats #4 (show of progress)

It was back to the Hill on Saturday afternoon.  I spent a good deal of time stretching, then heating, then stretching the quad beforehand and made sure I got in a good 3-mile warm-up.  Same deal as the two previous sessions:  10 x 1-minute, jog back down, no rest between reps.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow.  Let's just say it was another tremendously difficult session to get through.  At the end of the last rep I was light headed and dizzy to the point where I honestly needed to get off my feet for a good 30-seconds.  

Good news is that the quad made it through OK.  No issues during the session, no issues later that evening.  The next morning I can feel that it's a little tight, but not as bad as last week.  I scheduled another CMT session for tomorrow, so hopefully she'll be able to make more progress there.

At this point, I'm halfway through my eight scheduled hill sessions.  After the first session (the one on the 20% grade hill of death) sessions 2 through 4 have been identical.  (10 x 1-minute all on the same hill)  Here's a look at my progress:  (times shown in mile pace)

Rep #	17-Oct	24-Oct	8-Nov
1	7:04	6:10	5:57
2	7:09	6:22	6:47
3	7:05	6:23	6:27
4	6:59	6:27	6:04
5	6:53	6:28	6:13
6	7:01	6:54	6:12
7	7:03	7:00	6:10
8	6:42	7:06	6:39
9	6:43	7:11	6:37
10	6:13	6:49	6:21
Average:	6:53	6:41	6:20

When I look at it in terms of mile pace, obviously all of it looks really slow.  I can tell you it definitely doesn't feel slow when I'm about 50-seconds into rep #6 with the near 10% grade I'm working with.

When I look at in terms of progress from one session to the next it's definitely encouraging.  Clearly I'm getting better every time out.  Not sure how this translates into me getting better at an 800m or a 5k, but I'm certainly getting better at running up this hill!  

We may change it up the next couple of sessions - either 8 x 90-seconds or maybe 12 x 45-seconds focusing on greater speed.  I imagine that after another few sessions I'll begin to plateau and we'll move on to a different area of focus for "quality day #2" each week.  As it stands now, Q-day #1 is Threshold running, and has been since early September, but that will be changing after next week.  Next Wednesday is my 4-mile Tempo run and that's going to be the last threshold effort before transitioning Q-day #1 to preliminary speed work.

So it looks like it will be prelim speed and hills for about a month before we change it up again.  I'll post up a review of my base training since July-August in the next few days - I really like the way it's flowed and I certainly can't complain about my progress.  As usual, just need to stay healthy!!

Training:  

Fri, 11/7:  AM  4-miles @ 7:09

                PM  6-miles @ 7:33  (need to rest up - hills tomorrow)

Sat, 11/8:  6- miles, including 10 x 1-minute Hills.