Hill Training
Hill Training - Managed to get my heart rate up to 180 - obviously dogging it! And I didn't allow myself to recover enough between hills two and three (I was trying to catch the pretty girls). I am happy about the 40-45 swings in my heart rate on the other hills.
The weather last night was a little hot for hill training, 77 degrees (26 C). I was chipping in to help June with the Half Marathon Clinic Hills workout and I must be doing something right as a few members confided afterwards that they were dreading my appearance... Hey, those are shouts of encouragement!
There is nothing like having someone bellowing at you to from the top of the hill to make you go faster, if only to make that person (we know who, don't we) shut up. June has some very fast bunnies in her clinic. On the last hill I bet a few that the last one to the top had to buy beers for the rest. In the resulting mad rush to the top I thought for sure I had floated a heart valve... I barely managed to eke out a narrow victory for middle-aged, over the hill men everywhere. By the end of the session a goodly portion of the group was bent over, hands are their knees, gasping for breath, your correspondent included. A few even confessed to feeling light-headed and a little nauseous. God, I love hills.
Afterwards, I was exhausted. A fast 26K on Sunday and then three hard days in a row running in hot weather on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday had taken their toll. After the cool-down run to the Running Room afterwards, I could hardly move. I was beat. I mean, it was tough to get myself up off of the bench I was planted on.
I was in bed by ten and slept until 7:00am. I slept two hours longer than normal, although I did get up at 2:00am and guzzle down a litre of water. Then it was back to the mattress for the sleep of the dead.
I am curtailing my diet today, because it is the beginning of the Vince birthday weekend. I am out for dinner and drinks -huzzah!- this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Life is good! Then it is back on the wagon until after the Okanagan Marathon in Kelowna which JUST happens to coincide with the Okanagan Wine Festival!
So for the next five days I will try and eat sensibly in terms of WHAT I eat, but I'm definitely in the mood for a few treats. I've almost forgotten what red wine and chocolate taste like. Also, at 186 pounds, it may not be a bad idea to really replenish my body in preparation for the 64K of Stormy coming up in only eight days on August 13th... Kind of a mini mid-marathon taper.
posted by Vince Hemingson at 8:25 AM
2 Comments:
Vince,
If all goes well, tomorrow AM, I'll run an 11.6 mile race named for 1957 Boston Marathon winner John J. Kelley (aka Johnny Kelley the Younger). I hope I get the chance to chat with him a bit. He's one of 4 (5?) Americans to have won since the end of WWII (it's been won more times, but duplicate winners). Nothing like visiting with one of the pantheon for inspiration.
Wayne
Nicely done Vince - the hills always seem to speak for themselves in that we hate them and love them all at the same time. I managed to do hills on my own this week (given all the birthday craziness and fireworks going on running with the group wasn't really an option), and thanks to the loaned S210 I have a great understanding of how hard I was actually working. I modified the hill route on Bridal so it was using the steeper section at the top, and managed to have a spread of 68bpm between the top and bottom, topping out at 182bpm. Woot!!
I can sympathize with your tiredness - I'm exhuasted this week as well. I think in large part it has to do with the heat, which is a huge energy drain when we're not used to running in it.
Post a Comment
<< Home