Day Eighty Two - Graduation Day
Graduation from Hill Training that is.
It's weird - I feel kind of like I cheated the program here. We did 5 weeks of Wednesday night hill training in Central Park for the marathon. It just so happens that I missed two of those nights because of my schedule. So I was there the first night of training, then last week for the downhill session (obviously the easiest of the bunch) and then again this week for graduation night, although one of the coaches said it was more like "final exams" and she was right. We were tackling the Harlem Hill, which is the longest and scariest in the park. The one I was cursing myself on last weekend. Although to be completely honest, it's really not all THAT scary once you've done it a couple times. I probably would have been cursing myself anywhere at that point last week.
Anyway, we did a warm up run over to the hill (which is actually where I start all my personal runs in the park since the foot of the hill is the closest entrance to the park from my apartment, 5 blocks north) and then we were instructed to use all that we learned over the past 5 weeks (effort levels, arm swinging, stride length - you know, the stuff I missed out on in the middle of these five weeks - excellent) to run up the hill. The hill splits in the middle with a turn and to the halfway point we were to run HARD and after the halfway point we were supposed to down shift, but still be putting some decent effort in. We recovered on the downhill back to the start and then repeated the process, only on the second time up the hill we went at a decent pace for the first half, then pushed hard to the top. Get it?
Oh Christ, now I'm talking like Ramon in my head...some of you won't get that, but Jen will.
The run felt really really good, to be honest. My effort levels felt right where they needed to be and I was taking the hill at a pretty good clip. I started to cramp up a bit, which tends to happen with me when I shift gears a lot during a run, but I was handling it OK and my recovery downhills were getting me through. I did the round trip up the hill and back six times. On th sixth time down I started to get a little worried - I had a few left in me, but I was thinking we'd probably do 3 or 4 more as Ramon had told us it would be a long night. As I passed him on the downhill he said "you guys are done, go back." I was shocked. Honestly, I thought he was screwing around with us. Not that I wasn't thankful, but I just expected to have my ass kicked a lot more.
I got back to the start of the hill and asked some of the other runners if he was serious about us going back and they said he was. It was a mile and a quarter back to where we meet and stretch in the park and since I was feeling like I had held back a little on the hill thinking we'd be out there longer I decided to push it back on the "cool down" run. I was moving at what felt like I would like to run the day of the marathon and I felt great doing it, especially after 6 miles of hills, but again, 1.25 miles is a shit lot different than 26.2, you know?
All in all, a great night. Got to work the next day and calculated the distance and was really impressed with the run and how I was feeling the next day - not bad at all. I also got the chance to try out my new running duds (this hobby is fricking expensive, man) which made me feel like half geek, half actual runner...although I think I need longer shorts as no one should be subjected to seeing my knees on a regular basis.
This weekend we're off to yet another wedding - last one of the year - FINALLY. The couple we stayed with in Baltimore will be there though and I've already got a group that wants to go out running Saturday morning, so while I'll miss the long Team run (good luck guys) I'll be clocking in as close to 10 miles as I can...gotta save some energy for dancing, babies. You know that.
Have a great weekend. Enjoy some fall weather and some football. Thanks for reading...more later...
DAY 81
TODAY'S MILEAGE - 8.5
TOTAL MILEAGE - 167.18
PS - Remember how I said I feel like I cheated the program a bit missing 2 weeks of hill training? Yeah, well, I feel bad about that and all, but not really bad enough to go back and make the work up on my own. Say a prayer that that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass in Phoenix...
It's weird - I feel kind of like I cheated the program here. We did 5 weeks of Wednesday night hill training in Central Park for the marathon. It just so happens that I missed two of those nights because of my schedule. So I was there the first night of training, then last week for the downhill session (obviously the easiest of the bunch) and then again this week for graduation night, although one of the coaches said it was more like "final exams" and she was right. We were tackling the Harlem Hill, which is the longest and scariest in the park. The one I was cursing myself on last weekend. Although to be completely honest, it's really not all THAT scary once you've done it a couple times. I probably would have been cursing myself anywhere at that point last week.
Anyway, we did a warm up run over to the hill (which is actually where I start all my personal runs in the park since the foot of the hill is the closest entrance to the park from my apartment, 5 blocks north) and then we were instructed to use all that we learned over the past 5 weeks (effort levels, arm swinging, stride length - you know, the stuff I missed out on in the middle of these five weeks - excellent) to run up the hill. The hill splits in the middle with a turn and to the halfway point we were to run HARD and after the halfway point we were supposed to down shift, but still be putting some decent effort in. We recovered on the downhill back to the start and then repeated the process, only on the second time up the hill we went at a decent pace for the first half, then pushed hard to the top. Get it?
Oh Christ, now I'm talking like Ramon in my head...some of you won't get that, but Jen will.
The run felt really really good, to be honest. My effort levels felt right where they needed to be and I was taking the hill at a pretty good clip. I started to cramp up a bit, which tends to happen with me when I shift gears a lot during a run, but I was handling it OK and my recovery downhills were getting me through. I did the round trip up the hill and back six times. On th sixth time down I started to get a little worried - I had a few left in me, but I was thinking we'd probably do 3 or 4 more as Ramon had told us it would be a long night. As I passed him on the downhill he said "you guys are done, go back." I was shocked. Honestly, I thought he was screwing around with us. Not that I wasn't thankful, but I just expected to have my ass kicked a lot more.
I got back to the start of the hill and asked some of the other runners if he was serious about us going back and they said he was. It was a mile and a quarter back to where we meet and stretch in the park and since I was feeling like I had held back a little on the hill thinking we'd be out there longer I decided to push it back on the "cool down" run. I was moving at what felt like I would like to run the day of the marathon and I felt great doing it, especially after 6 miles of hills, but again, 1.25 miles is a shit lot different than 26.2, you know?
All in all, a great night. Got to work the next day and calculated the distance and was really impressed with the run and how I was feeling the next day - not bad at all. I also got the chance to try out my new running duds (this hobby is fricking expensive, man) which made me feel like half geek, half actual runner...although I think I need longer shorts as no one should be subjected to seeing my knees on a regular basis.
This weekend we're off to yet another wedding - last one of the year - FINALLY. The couple we stayed with in Baltimore will be there though and I've already got a group that wants to go out running Saturday morning, so while I'll miss the long Team run (good luck guys) I'll be clocking in as close to 10 miles as I can...gotta save some energy for dancing, babies. You know that.
Have a great weekend. Enjoy some fall weather and some football. Thanks for reading...more later...
DAY 81
TODAY'S MILEAGE - 8.5
TOTAL MILEAGE - 167.18
PS - Remember how I said I feel like I cheated the program a bit missing 2 weeks of hill training? Yeah, well, I feel bad about that and all, but not really bad enough to go back and make the work up on my own. Say a prayer that that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass in Phoenix...
posted by Demps at 10:33 AM
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