Bye-Bye 9 minute miles

Today was a nice and easy 3.5 miles. I decided to give The Hill of Death another go. So I drove to my starting point. My initial plan was to run the hill first and finish with a flat three miles. But once I got there I turned left instead of right, sending me on the flat three mile route first. Oops. So I spent three miles thinking about that hill, imagining me running up that hill, picturing me crawling up that hill… My first mile was decent: 8:58.22. I spent at least 15 seconds trying to cross the street frogger style. My second mile was awesome: 8:25.71. I looked at my Garmin and could not believe it! My third mile was respectable: 8:44.07. I purposely slowed a little bit because I knew I would want some energy for the hill, it didn’t help. I turned and headed up the big hill. I made it ¼ of a mile before stopping to catch my breath. Did I mention it was pretty hot here today? The sun was beating down on me and I had a quarter of a mile straight up to go. So I started up again. I got a few “Are you CRAZY?” looks from people driving up and down the hill and I gave them the “Yes, completely INSANE, don’t mess with me look” in return. It was not pretty, it was not fun. But it IS done. One of these days I will run the entire hill all the way to the top (I didn’t run all the way up today) without stopping.

It is CLEAR as DAY to me that I need more hill work, not only incorporated in my daily runs but in my interval training. So I am on the lookout for a good hill that is about a quarter of a mile long so that I can do some hill work. For now I am excited to be leaving my days as a 9 min/mile runner behind! My goal of a sub 2 hour half is within site!!!!

Today I am grateful for:
Beautiful weather.
Confidence in my running!
Improved conditioning and times!

Pre school.


Run Happy!