Hills!

Today's run called for a 2 mile warm-up, 5 hills and a 2 mile cool-down.  Well, I did everything but not exactly like it should have been done.  The plan was to wake up really early and drive to the next town over where there are some hills and run there.  But that would require like 30 minutes in the car.  So ... when the alarm clock went off, I said no way!  So I got up at regular time and just ran 4 miles (my warm-up and cool down).  We'll talk about the hills in a minute.  For now, the morning run was nice.  There was a really cool full moon.

And the light from the moon made a really spooky shadow of me on the road.  :P

The run itself was pretty uneventful.  Was a little slow.  My muscles were tight after the fast run yesterday.  Splits were 9:39, 9:21, 9:21, 9:04.  Coulda been better.

After the run, I got the kids ready for school then got myself ready and went to work.  I decided to run my hills after work because it was just easier to get over to Cedar Hill then.

And then I found my hill.  Just look at that nervous smile on my face.  I did NOT want to run it 5 times!!

When I was at the top of the hill the 5th time, I wish I had my camera so I could take a picture from the top so I ran back down and got the camera from my car and ran back up for a 6th time.  The things I'll do for a picture.  LOL!  Pretty cool view!  I'm thinking about moving in that mansion you can see on the right side of the picture.  Just not sure it's quite big enough!!!  :D

The good news... I couldn't resist buying a milkshake on my way to the hill so when I was done, there was a little left.  Not really on my diet but hey, I was running hills for the first time!

Those 6 hill repeats weren't that far (about a mile and a quarter total) but I sure was sweaty!  I figured out why once I turned on the car and looked at the temperature.

Overall, I was happy with the hills.  Just wish there was a hill closer to me.  I can see this is going to be a challenge for the next 5 weeks until I start speed intervals on Wednesdays.  The graphs are fun to look at for hills.  Look how my speed goes way down as the hills go up!  Average pace was 10:23.  That needs to get better.  But I'll take it cause today I was more working on short strides up the hill and not overstriding down the hill.  It's actually almost as hard going down the hill!!

Tomorrow is a 4 mile 9:00 pace run.