No long (for me) run this week, but ended up with one of my biggest weeks of the year. How did that happen? Well, follow along on a magical journey...
Onto the numbers...
4/18, Sunday: 7.5 total. Save Our Swinging Bridge 5k.
4/19, Monday: 5 - 43:16, Homeplace Loop. Devised a new loop from home that includes the powerlines, and a new (to me) connector that touches the edge of two neighborhoods (one neighborhood is on Homeplace Road, hence the name), and returns back on the powerlines. I needed to add a bit in the Mt. Ararat trails, but it's always nice to find new trails.
4/20, Tuesday: 3 - 24:22, Suck Loop. Windy. Felt a little off.
4/21, Wednesday: 10.5 total. 9x Hill Repeats on Prospect & Oak w/ Nate & Kevin. I'd been searching for a hill to train on for Mt. Washington, and a portion of this hill, Prospect St., was actually part of the Swinging Bridge 5. The second part, Oak St., was much steeper and finished at a water tower. Nate and Kevin joined me for 6 of my repeats, and it was great to have company for this workout. Plus, Kevin knew of a trail down from the top that kept us off the road for most of the descent. We decided to add a small piece to each repeat after realizing they felt a bit short. (That could also be because we ran the first one WAY too fast.) Repeats ended up being .35 miles.
Here are the numbers: 2:07, 2:42, 2:46, 2:47, 2:52, 2:51, 2:58, 3:02, 2:53. I think that 2:50 is the right number for these repeats, and I'm definitely planning on doing this workout again. It was tough. The warm up and cool down were about 2 miles, since that's the distance from my house. (Uphill on the way home...ouch.)
4/22, Thursday: Off. Sore quads. Can't imagine why.
4/23, Friday: 5 - 40:30, Highland Green Loop. Nice but windy. Felt surprisingly good, especially my quads. That's a good sign.
4/24, Saturday: 5 - 41:52, Bike path with Sam in B.O.B. Planned to just run 3, but once Samantha fell asleep, I wanted her to stay that way. Felt good.
Totals:
Miles: 36
Trail: 5
Road: 31
Lots of road miles this week, but I did run a road race and do hill repeats on the road. (I counted the entire hill workout as road even though a portion of the downs was on trail. In fact, most of my road runs include a little bit of trail.) Not a huge deal, though, because I felt pretty good all week. Good building week, and I'm really pleased with that hill workout. Granted, it was meant for Mt. Washington, but it's going to help me at Pineland as well.
Tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BihjWa47WuM
Listening to the Pixies makes everything better. Seriously, listen to more Pixies.
Up next...Mud, Muck & Moose. Spoiler alert: There was very little of any of those.
7 comments:
I should be doing hill repeats too....why haven't I yet? I better get on the stick..eh? Is it ok to crawl up Mt Washington or would that be too hard on the knees?
Admittedly, this is the first year (out of three) that I've done any sort of additional hillwork for Mt. Washington. Not that I necessarily recommend that tactic...
Crawling is allowed. Go with knee pads. In all seriousness, you may fond yourself running and being passed by someone walking. It's a very strange race.
Hey good week snowman. The hill repeats are key. But good luck finding that hill climbing pace that you can do consistently! And Hill repeats aren't just for Mt. W! They are standard ops for all runners; track, road, & trail. Not that I do them much. It does raise the question though what is the best workout for Mt. Washington type races? I'm guessing the best workout is the mental one to forego beer and chocolate chip cookies for the month before the race.
See, I need a reason to torture myself, so the hills were DEFINITELY for Mt. Washington.
The best training for Mt. Washington? Has to be running the Road itself. Not too many places you can go uphill steadily for that long. Mountain runs would be a close second, I would think. I think the toughest thing is to break through the mental barrier of how slow you're going compared to how much it hurts.
OK, was interested in running Mt. W. someday, but not if foregoing beer and chocolate chip cookies are seen as good race prep!
I'm impressed with the hill repeats. I realize stuff like that and speed work is good, but always end up just running.
Speed work is evil. Weight is the enemy of an hill climber (running, biking, skiing) so my goal is to lose 10lbs by Father's day. But giving up cc cookies is even more evil than speedwork.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! I just ran up a hill a couple times. Let's not go crazy here. There's no way I'm giving up beer.
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