Sprinting Hills

Recently I ran with a local running club through my local mother’s forum that meets once a week, half a mile from my house, and goes on a 3 mile run together.  I had such a great time that I’m hoping to start going regularly.  I had a chance to run with an experienced runner who was willing to take it easy to jog next to me, and chat with me about running.  Her presence helped me push myself harder on my run, and we had a great conversation about kids and running.

I told her I’d love to drop my pace time some, but have been scared to push myself too hard since I’m also focusing on a distance goal.

Her recommendation was to run a hills workout once a week where you start at the bottom of a hill, sprint to the top, recover by walking down, and repeat about 8 times (or until you fall over, I guess… whichever comes first.  This sounds really hard.)  She also recommended strength training a few times a week, even just at home with an on-demand fitness program or video.  Yeah.  I should probably be doing that.  Do you think hefting two toddlers up and down off the changing table counts?  No?  I don’t really think it does, either.

I completed my first hills workout on a nasty little hill near our house that my mother calls “calf-killer hill”.  I did a mile warm-up, then the hills, intending to finish with a mile long cool down.  I seriously over-estimated my motivation, because my cool down was walking my sorry calves home to hop in the shower.  I had to write “1.3 miles” on my running log as a run.  Next time I think I’ll do an easy 3 mile run first, because I’m not in the mood to run more after!

Here’s the log of my Garmin so you can see my motivation DIE at the last hill sprint!

Do I really have to do this once a week to get faster?!  (Honestly, I’m willing to try!)



It’s kind of hard to take a picture of a hill that shows how steep it is.  This is a really steep hill, people.  I swear.

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