I am counting down the days to when I no longer need to run this big a$$ hills every week. Running hills makes you stronger. I get this. However, I have come to the conclusion that I am just not going to be a fan of hills…ever.
Changing it up
Rather than listening to a podcast or Big Bang Theory audiobook, I decided to listen to my Spotify music playlist that I use when I run races. As I turned to start up the hill, my son’s band came up on my playlist. I used his music and thinking about him to inspire me up the hill. Rather than focusing on how hard I was working, I tried to focus on memories with my son and thinking about how excited I am to see him this week for Thanksgiving. My husband and I became empty-nesters just a few months ago and sometimes it’s hard not seeing my son everyday.
Distraction methods are sometimes the best method for getting through difficult things. On the second run up the hill I went a different direction with my focus and tuned into my body and form. I noticed that I was really tense and tight through my upper body and arms. I tried to relax everything but my legs and put all of my mental and physical energy there. Once I did this I noticed that the hill got a little easier.
Not easy. Just a little easier. I want to make sure that’s very clear and we don’t have any wild misunderstandings about how difficult I still find hill running.
Sometimes the second run up the hill is slightly faster than the first but today I was slightly slower. Although I’m recovering well after each run, I believe that the increased weekly mileage is starting to impact my over level of fatigue, so I feel the hard workouts more than earlier in my training.
Making technology work for you
I discovered how to mark my own “laps” on my Coros watch during this run. The default for a lap is one mile, so the benefit to marking my own laps means I can mark when I start down the hill, when I start up the hill and when I start my cool down mile heading home. This is great data to have because with it, I can breakdown my stats by downhill effort, versus uphill effort. I can see how long it takes me to run the hill, my pace, cadence, heart rate and elevation gain or loss.
Before using this feature I had been making a mental note of when I started down the hill and I calculated it together with the uphill which came out to a mile. However, I was only able to get down and up hill combined averages. Now, I can see them as separate stats and compare apples with apples, so to speak. That’s how I know that I ran the second hill a bit slower than the first. If I would have averaged the two separate miles (total hill 1 versus total hill 2) then it would have looked like I ran it faster because my downhill speed on the second repeat was faster than the first.
Kettlebell strength
Another reason I’m looking forward to dropping hill work is it takes more time than other types of runs. I require a longer warm up and it’s slower running. The longer run time cuts into my strength time. However, today I made it back to the house by around 6:30 A.M. so I had just enough time to get in my kettlebell strength workout, which I had to miss last week.
Twenty-five minutes isn’t a long time, so I moved through the moves quickly and focused on the moves that would give me the biggest bang for the buck. I kept single side exercises, lunges catches, swings and core moves. I cut out most of the upper body moves. However, I threw in 20 traditional push ups, just to make sure I’m maintaining upper body strength. The arms are what really power you up hills, so it’s important to keep your arms strong, too.
Workout
- 4 mile run with 2x’s ½ mile hill repeats
- 25 minutes kettlebell strength