Monday, June 12, 2006
Hills made to order
I live in a hilly neighborhood. In my quest to find a training route for hills I tried a loop that starts practically outside my front door. Alert readers might note that my last post made it sound like hills were hard to find. The reasons I didn't think of the neighborhood right away is that first, I do most of my daily runs at the office, and second, the hills close to home are rather steep. I'm not sure 'rolling' would be how most people would describe them.
Still, I decided to give it a go. The route I picked is only a couple of blocks, includes a very steep uphill and two steep to moderate downhills (and a few gradual uphills that are negligable). Turns out it was a nice route to run. I did one lap, felt pretty good, and did a second. I could have done more, but I felt that I would be risking injury to do too much too soon (it's the downhills that concern me).
Judging from my time, I guessed that this course was roughly a mile. Well, as it turns out, the gmaps pedometer reports it as exacly 1 mile. I mean, within 1 or 2 percent! This almost seems like fate.
Anyhow, my plan now is to do some hill workouts every once in a while. When I start doing my long runs at home, I can add some hill miles at the end, to mimic the CCM experience.
So far, so good. I'm waiting to see what the effect of yesterday's run will have on the knees (I find I feel things most the second day after a new workout).
Still, I decided to give it a go. The route I picked is only a couple of blocks, includes a very steep uphill and two steep to moderate downhills (and a few gradual uphills that are negligable). Turns out it was a nice route to run. I did one lap, felt pretty good, and did a second. I could have done more, but I felt that I would be risking injury to do too much too soon (it's the downhills that concern me).
Judging from my time, I guessed that this course was roughly a mile. Well, as it turns out, the gmaps pedometer reports it as exacly 1 mile. I mean, within 1 or 2 percent! This almost seems like fate.
Anyhow, my plan now is to do some hill workouts every once in a while. When I start doing my long runs at home, I can add some hill miles at the end, to mimic the CCM experience.
So far, so good. I'm waiting to see what the effect of yesterday's run will have on the knees (I find I feel things most the second day after a new workout).
