Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Hill repeats

I woke up early here in East Texas.  I had my coffee and then headed outside.  At the end of the driveway is a hill on both sides.  I let my GPS watch sync up and slipped on my racing flats.  I also grabbed my orange cones. 

I took it easy for 2 miles while I warmed up.  I was not sure how far I would be able to run these hill repeats.  I wanted them to be super fast and super short.  I had programed the Garmin for intervals; consisting of 6 x 1 minute with 2 minutes rest.  These would be as near all out as I could muster.

I placed the first cone at the bottom of the hill.  This would be the starting point.  Since I was not sure exactly how far I could run in one minute I ran the first interval with the second cone.

I pressed the lap button and ran flat out as hard as could.  As the the one counted down I looked at the watch.  When the 60 seconds had passed I dropped the cone.  This would the mark.  The line to beat for the next 5 hill repeats.

hills

Not my hill …

I was breathing hard but I quickly turned to jog back down the hill.  It took about 80 seconds to get back to the starting point.  This gave me about 40 seconds to walk slowly and recover.

Obviously the hill repeats did not get any easier but they also did not get any slower.  Even though these were ‘only’ 1 minute on they were quite challenging.  These were a solid hill workout. 

Looking at the stats for the session, I ran them very close to my half mile repeat times but they were uphill.

3 comments:

misszippy said...

I really do love hill repeats. Miserable when at them, but they pay off in spades. Great work!

Amy said...

Excellent idea ... Gotta get me some cones.

Jennifer said...

You are a monster! Have fun in TX. See you when you get back to MS!