Right now I would say my biggest weakness in training is hill work. Why you might ask? Well for many reasons.
1--Have you seen where I live? It's basically a pancake.
2--Have you seen where I live? Pancake-ville.
But seriously... hills are tough. Once you've adapted to them though... they are great. Hills develop strength and speed that would otherwise take a lot of time and energy to acquire... and, if run correctly, hills make you a more efficient runner.
So, living in pancake-ville poses a challenge for Boston training. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Boston's course, it's a straight shot. You start out in Hopkinton and run 26.2 miles to Boston. In the first mile you descend 130 feet. By mile 5 you've run a gradual decline of 310 feet. I'm sure you're thinking no big deal. Right. However, if you don't run smart on that downhill you will be in a world of pain sooner than expected. And what comes down, must go up? Right? So yes, there is the notorious 'heart break hill' right around the point where most people hit "the wall." Gradually from mile 16 to mile 21 you climb. Then at mile 22 you descend again. Fun!!
Great placement people! So the other joy about training in pancake-ville is that ALL of Boston training takes place in the winter. Yes, you start in Dec/Jan and there is still snow and freezing temperatures through race day. It's South Bend, there has been snow at Easter and graduation before! Awesome. This compounds issue of hill training because you can try to run repeats on the few hills that are accessible, but once the roads and sidewalks are covered in snow and ice, they're out of commission (unless you like splitting things open, being hit by vehicles or general hospitalization).
The only alternative left: the TREADMILL. Ok, if you've never run hills on the treadmill... Try it. It sucks. I'm not being a hater on this... but let's be honest about something... what most* treadmills do is go up... and then they go flat. They don't go down! Hello! Recovery! Learning how to run the downhill! Neither of these things are possible. (*There are decline treadmills, and if I had $5k to just shell out, I would have one in my possession tomorrow. No dice.)
Today I sought out hills. This adds to the total training time. (People wonder why we can't just run anywhere sometimes). Fortunately not far from my house is a neighborhood with rolling hills. Whew! What a great run! Challenging at times (some of these inclines are decent), but also so invigorating! I love running on hills. I love the varying terrain. This is probably one of the reasons I loved Ithaca so much. Everyday was a hill day---and I subsequently was in probably the best shape of my life.
I finished my run feeling accomplished. Satisfied. And desperately needing to roll out... my butt.
3 comments:
I hate hills. lol. Have you tried Wilsox n park or Bedix woods? If there's no snow, you can have a killer hill workout. Also there are trails with hills in Blair Hills (named that for a reason). All the hills are on the south side. I promise, you won't be disappointed.
Would you like to run them with me? ;)
Let me clarify, I hate hills. Like beyond hate. LOL. I've never been good at them, even though our home course was hilly and we used to do hill repeats over and over. I would however run 4-5 miles of your run with you, but you are much faster than me so I don't think it would be with you :)
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