Okay, hills suck.
Julie Andrews—while vigorously singing their praises—forgot to mention that running up them repeatedly will make you feel like puking.That's not the first time Julie has led me wrong, but I won't go into the details (that's between me and you, Ms. Andrews...).
I think I was a little too ambitious in my hill choice, picking a street in my neighborhood (San Francisco) that could probably be used for a downhill skiing competition. MapMyRun.com says it's about 200+ feet elevation change over the course of 150 yards distance. Is that a big hill? Or am I just a wuss? (Leave a comment—I'd be curious to know what types of hills everyone else runs).
Admittedly, I only managed 2 before I scaled back and ran the lesser incline part of the hill a couple times. Much shorter—only maybe 80 yards—but it was at least something.
I had to wait a bit to use the squat rack at the gym, so I kept warmed up by hitting the rowing machine. Squats this week was 3 sets of 5 reps @ 135, 155 and 185 pounds. I also did 3 sets of backward-forward lunges for 5 reps (each side). 50 crunches, some crunches on the swiss ball, then stretches. Lots of stretches.
Decent workout, definitely got the quads cookin'. I think a normal run would have been more satisfying, but maybe that's just because I sucked so badly at the hills.
(UPDATE: after some feedback from folks on Twitter and doing a little Googling, it appears the 22% grade I was running on is just a wee bit steeper than the 5-8% grade recommended for hill repeats. Pheeeewwww!)
Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox.
2 Brilliant Remarks:
Did you want us to leave a comment as to whether or not you are a wuss? Wasn't sure...
There seems to be nothing but flat land and corn stalks around my parts so I'll have to trust you that the hill work outs are brutal. And hill work outs mixed with Julie Andrews? Add +1 to the degree of difficulty. Nice job!
Thanks for all the hellasound linking! I've been checking your site out a bit to see what the hubbub is about.
@Nitmos: I think the wuss thing is a foregone conclusion. I do, after all, have a pic of Julie Andrews (in all her arm-flung splendor) in my post. I'll just have to accept the inevitable.
My pleasure on the linkage. If I expose just one untainted mind to your blog, then my job here is done.
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