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August 19, 2004
Strong Night
Thursday nights are longer intervals or hills depending on the time of year. Right now it is hill time. We'll do repeats on the same hill for six or seven weeks, depending on how many Thursdays fall during August. The further we get in we add some on. I don't ever remember doing more than six of these. One of the new men asked me when they get easier, I had to tell him that these hills never get easy. My goal is to feel strong on the way up the hill and stay relaxed and not overrun the downs. Last week I did 4 in 27:30, I was told to only do 4 again this week. My goal was to run a touch faster. On this hill if you run a little bit faster you can definitely feel it.
So we warmed up almost three miles. We get to the hill and go off about 10 seconds apart so that there isn't a herd of people running up the hill when cars are driving up and down it. I was one of the first to go off since I was thinking "the sooner I get started the sooner I'm finished". Did I mention that the humidity was about 100% this afternoon? So I go up the first time, trying to feel relaxed. This one feel pretty easy, but the first one never feels too bad. Halfway up the second time my stomach starts really gurgling. I feel good coming down. Onto number three, stomach is still gurgling. Whenever I do more than 3 intervals of anything, I choose one to "slack" on. This is the interval where I try to relax, hopefully maintain my pace and then come back strong. The third hill is the one that I picked to slack on. Yippee, I'm on the last hill. My stomach really is not liking me now, I'm burping and just trying to get to the top to turn around. I made it!! Now all I have to do is run down. Well, when I got to the bottom and stopped my watch I finally understood why I thought I was going to die going up the last two times. I did the course in 27:00, much faster than last week and probably quite a bit hotter and more humid.
Now onto the warmdown, which includes about a half mile of steep uphill back. Of course it is also the first half mile. I was running with two of the guys and we got going way too fast until I mentioned that I was going to slow down. Whenever I get talking with people the I forget that the pace is supposed to be slow.
By the time I finished I looked like I had jumped into a pool. I only had on shorts and a sports bra and everything was absolutely soaked. I sweat quite a bit. I know that I need to get better about drinking water. When I'm working I'm much better than when I am at home most of the time. Since I had to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things I had to change out of my running clothes on the street which is so much easier in the summer than in the winter.
I took my version of an ice bath, which is just sitting in cold water in the bath tub for 10 minutes. I have noticed that my legs feel much better after I do that. I also figured out the root of the outside of my right foot pain. I tried to run on grass some on Sunday morning and stepped in a ditch and turned my foot and then did it again several times on Monday when we were running on the fields. When I looked at it today, the right foot is definitely swollen. Since I've been running on it without pain for the past two days, we decided that it would be OK to run on it and to make sure I continue to ice it at night.
Now I must devote my energys to watching the gymnastics, I don't know what happened yet!
Posted by Blondie at August 19, 2004 08:27 PM