After a disaster of a day, I could not wait to get home and hit the road. I didn’t care that it was hot and a bit muggy. I didn’t care that I had to dig a sports bra out of the dirty laundry. I needed to put some distance – both physical and mental – between the crappy day and me.
After about a 1/2 mile warm-up, I set my sights on some hill repeats. I say this like I’ve done it before; I haven’t. This was my first attempt at “hill repeats” and I was determined to not be intimidated by the task at hand. There’s this steep but short hill right near my house that always kicks my butt at the start of my run…so now I wanted to kick it back.
Being optimistic, I thought I would shoot for five times up the hill. Then I got the hill, and decided that three times up might be a more realistic goal. I wanted to feel proud when I was done, not defeated. And so it went – up the hill and down; repeat. Three times. It wasn’t as bad as I thought, but it was hard. I was astonished when I realized that it was taking me over 2 minutes to conquer the hill each time! Of course, the downhill was the best part – I love when gravity does the work for me.
I finished up with another 1/2 mile and then grabbed my dogs for a cool-down walk together. The hill workout took about 24 minutes (without the cool-down walk) and this morning, my lungs feel like I developed asthma while I was sleeping. A little tight in the chest, but it’s like sore muscles after a good weight-lifting workout – it reminds you of how hard you worked.
I may whine and complain about all the hills in my area of the state (Northeast Connecticut) but I just have to keep reminding myself that they will make a stronger runner.
