Thursday, February 18, 2010

My love/hate relationship with Amber's Hill run

Let me start off by saying that the 4 mile-incline 2 run I did yesterday was a piece of cake! I was going to post a comment on Amber's post but I had so much to say (are you shocked) that I decided to do a separate post. So, it all started off well, mile 1 on incline 1, then mile 2 on incline 2, it felt hard, I was starting to breathe heavier but it was fine. Then we hit mile 3 and the incline goes up to 5. Okay, this is really hard, I know it's only for 1/2 a mile but I'm breathing hard and running hard. Finally the 3 1/2 mile comes and I'm back down to the 2 incline thank goodness, catching my breath and thinking I have to run on an 8 incline next? Yowsers....! Thankfully I recover pretty well and when mile 4 hits and the incline goes up to 8... I'm okay....at first....okay, not for very long....I quickly realize I need to pull out the unedited version of my Eminem song that I go to in extreme situations like this one. That next 1/2 of a mile was messed up, seriously messed up which is why I'm going to do this workout again next week because messed up and my life go together. I was sucking serious air, trainers were looking over at me wondering if they were going to need to call 911. I could hear my breathing over my Ipod which has never happened. Finally mile 4 1/2 comes and I'm so relieved to get back to the 2 incline. The rest of the workout was fine. In fact the next 5 incline I was sort of in a daze still and my mind had wandered off and I was just going through the motions that I ran the incline for .70 miles instead of just the 1/2 mile. I recommend this workout to any that like to run on the treadmill but need a realistic run that will simulate hills. It's a good one. On a scale of 1-10 I give it an A. Adjust as needed like Amber mentioned she runs it twice or you can take the inclines to smaller numbers at first if you need a little less but I'm definitely adding it into my weeks. Try new things, your body gets use to the same old stuff. BTW I hate Eminem but a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do but if you see Kanye on my playlist feel free to slash my throat on the spot.....if your a true friend.

Thanks Amber
Happy Running Everyone.
Adrienne

4 comments:

  1. So, would you do this hill workout in the same week as doing an interval/speed workout and replace like a steady run... or would you just replace your interval workout with a hill workout? Just wondering? Or does it not matter?

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  2. I will do a hill workout like this once a week. A interval speed workout once a week and a long tempo run once a week and then the other 3 days lighter/shorter run days. I've been following the intermediate training plan on the Ragnar sites as far as miles to run which has you running 6 days a week. After almost 3 weeks I feel better already, just getting some miles under your belt helps out a lot.

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  3. So I did the hill workout today and LOVED it. Although I did go slower and so I had energy at the end and didn't have time to repeat the entire thing so I decided to stay at the last 5% incline for an extra mile. So in total I ran a little over 5.5 miles. I also decided to speed it up for the last .5 mile or so. Next time I am going to speed it up because I don't really have time to run this twice on the treadmill... nor do I want to( it is supposedly a 30 minute time limit on the treadmill at our gym.... so I am always pushing my luck because I am always over that amount of time). In General, I hate the treadmill. but I totally agree that this is a great way to get some hill work inside and make a treadmill workout bearable. I also think that I might (if I don't get kicked off the treadmill) increase the time during the incline at some point. So I think maybe going back between speeding it up and increasing the amount of time at each interval might be good ways to change it up. But I am looking forward to spring and going outside and running in the actual hills!! Anyone else SICK OF WINTER!!!!!!!!!

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  4. 30 minute limit? That sucks! I speed up on the lower inclines and slow down on the higher ones. Hopefully after a few weeks we can start to maintain or get closer to our tempo speed through the whole thing. And yes, I hate winter.

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