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Never Let a Roll of the Dice Decide Your Fate

Magic eight.

Eight is the number that was rolled last Thursday morning as we sat at the foot of a small Florida hill (technically some might call it an “incline”). To my chagrin, we did not roll a snake eyes.

What were we doing with a pair of dice on one of our morning runs? We certainly weren’t playing any board games.

It seems that I cannot miss any morning runs, because when I do, I come back to hear preposterous ideas like “Hey, let’s let the roll of the dice decide how many hill repeats we should do on Thursday mornings!”

And then something even more preposterous happens like an eight is rolled. Magic eight. *Sigh*

So eight times up, and eight times down we went.

Here’s how the experience looked in my head:

Hill Repeat #1: Alright let’s do this.
Hill Repeat #2: Good God! We’re only on the second repeat? There’s no way I can do this!
Hill Repeat #3: Hey, whose idea was this?
Hill Repeat #4: Seriously, whose ideas was this??
Hill Repeat #5: That was only halfway?
Hill Repeat #6: Wait, what repeat are we on?
Hill Repeat #7: (cursing starts) @#%#$!
Hill Repeat #8: You can do this. You can do this. You can do this.

Here’s how the experience looked via my friend’s tracking device:

Count the peaks and weep with me: 8

Needless to say, I’m very sorry that I’m going to be on vacation this week and unable to join this Thursday’s AM run…

Do you ever play games to get you through your runs?

Tags: hill repeats, hill training, running hills

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Categories Hell... er... Hill Combos, running

Hills, Groundhogs and the Most Inspiring Video

2 Feb

In the efforts of working on both my speed and strength, I’ve decided to rejoin the Marathonfest Thursday morning training sessions. I’ve been running with the ladies Tuesdays and Thursdays, but decided I could benefit from the Thursday hill and tempo workouts. The good news is, I can still join them for coffee afterwards (which I did this morning).

My goal for this morning was to run the 3.4-mile loop with hill repeats without taking any walk intervals. I was able to accomplish this goal. Since I remembered to bring my borrowed Garmin this morning, I actually have stats:

Distance: 3.34 miles
Time: 37:15.71
Avg Pace: 11:09/mi

Back when I trained for my half marathons, I would average around a 10:45/mi pace for shorter runs and 11:18/mi for the half marathon. My Disney Marathon pace was 13:22/mi and I hope to get that down to at least 12:00/mi for Flying Pig.

Going up hills you can usually find me muttering to myself. I tend say things like “dig deep” and “you can do this” and my favorite: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This was one of the bible verses my mom had us say before bed every night growing up and it’s always stuck with me. This morning was no exception. Unfortunately, you can usually also hear curse words flying out of my mouth during tough runs. I tend to have the mouth of a sailor. I try my hardest not to curse around the bible verse.

When I got home this morning I saw that a friend had posted this video. Watch it and tell me you don’t get the chills watching it. Tell me your whole being didn’t get excited at the end. Tell me you weren’t inspired. I think I actually clapped at the end and shouted. My dogs must think I’m weird (thought they have no room to judge).

And today’s Groundhog Day. For those of you in the colder regions, I hope the groundhog doesn’t see his shadow!

How did you feel when you watched the video I link to above?

Tags: athlete takes fall, groundhog day, hill repeats, hill training, inspiring running video, running hills

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Categories Hell... er... Hill Combos, running, Web

Running Field Trip: The Hills of Apopka

29 Jan

Yesterday morning, us Marathonfest runners took our first field trip of the training season: the hills of Apopka.

Just mention the words “hill training” to me and I tend to cringe. I’m the kinda girl that considers a speed bump a “small hill” and typically go out of my way to avoid any road inclines.

And yes, this is how I feel even though I’m told they will make me stronger. They will only make me stronger if they don’t kill me first.

So why does running hills suck so badly? I think this article from Runner’s World answers it well: “You have to recruit more muscle fibers to get yourself up the hill, which causes those muscles to fatigue faster,” says Carwyn Sharp, Ph.D., assistant professor of exercise science at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. On the bright side, keep doing hills and eventually your body adapts and gets stronger.

Since the Flying Pig Marathon has hills, I figured it was time to change my attitude. It’s either conquer them in training or face them unprepared on race day. So for the time being, when I hear the words “hill training” I will feign a “yeah!”

We started our run yesterday morning at 6 AM in Apopka. The street lights aren’t as plentiful out there and the roads were dark. Combined with the fog, it looked like a scene from a scary movie.

At least you could see our shoe reflectors:

Since I’m trying to work on my speed, I set out to keep up with the faster runners in our group. For the first 6.5 mile loop, I felt great! The hills were beasts, but I trudged up them, one foot after the other. However, towards the end of that loop I started to feel light-headed. I made sure to refuel with some Chocolate #9 agave gel.

For the second loop (only 4.5 miles) my energy level evened out. But around mile 8, my IT band started to lock up. Suddenly it felt like I was on mile 20 of the marathon and I had trouble bending my left knee. Rather than push myself through unnecessary pain (it’s just a training run) I decided to call it a day and walk the rest of the run out. The entire way back I lectured myself in my head for not doing more strength training in my legs. But at least I had a good 7.5 miles of hill running under my belt.

Lucky for me, I was sore by 5 PM. I guess I should’ve taken an ice bath, but with such low mileage it just hadn’t occurred to me. But at least the hills didn’t kill me. Well, at least this time.

Here are some more pictures from the run: