AM: Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. 7.01 miles. Average pace: 9:46. Weather: 57°F, 67% humidity, wind 2 NNE.
Everything worked out fine with the run to work. I added a detour at the beginning of the run to make the distance to work 6 miles instead of 4.5. Hudson says to do hill sprints on the steepest hill you can find, so that's what I did. There's a gully/green belt behind my office with really steep trails running through it. I did the hill sprints on the steepest hill I could find in that green belt. I don't know for sure, but I'm thinking it's got to be at least a 20% grade. When I get home this evening and am able to upload my workout from my Garmin to my computer, I'll see if I can tell what the grade on the hill is. As a result of doing the hill sprints on this hill, which is MUCH steeper than the hill I use at home, my hill sprints were much slower than I do them at home. The pace on the hill sprints was 7:26, 7:57, 8:10, 8:08, 8:44, 8:37, 8;16, 8:21, 7:09, 7:27. After I finished the hill sprints I ran another half mile through the trails to my office. The hill is not that far from my office if you could travel in a straight line, but the trails do switchbacks through the gully.
They have lockers in the dressing rooms here at work, but they've got a sign saying that you can't leave stuff there overnight and it will be confiscated if you do. So I had to leave my clothes and stuff at my desk last night, and then this morning I had to drag myself in my sweaty running clothes with sweaty headlights on my shirt up to the fourth floor to get my stuff, and then back to the first floor to the dressing room. I've got to find out of they really enforce that no overnight locker thing. It would be so much easier if I could leave my stuff there the night before.
It came to my attention yesterday that I should be doing doubles on hard workout days, not on easy workout days because the easy days are supposed to stay easy. I consider hill sprints days to be easy workout days because, while the hill sprints are intense, they are very short. However, I wanted to do hill sprints on a run to work day so that I could use the monster hills here. I've got a progression run that looks a lot like a tempo run tomorrow. It's 2 miles easy, 6 miles moderate, 2 miles easy. I figure if I find that I don't have the legs to do that workout tomorrow after running doubles today, then I'll change my plan and put my doubles on hard workout days so that I have the easy days to recover.
PM: Easy Run. 4.60 miles. Average pace: 9:47. Weather: 73°F, 50% humidity, wind 11 N. It's interesting to me how close my average pace is on this mornings run and this evenings run. I felt like I took it pretty easy on the way home and the hills didn't bother me too much. I'll have to see how I feel tomorrow. I looked in Training Center and it looks like it's got the grade on the hill where I did hill sprints at about 10%. I really think it's more than that. I might take my camera tomorrow and see if I can get a good picture of the hill.
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