Hill Repeats

One of the staples of training for Nike Women's Marathon in San Fran, or the Twin Cities Marathon, is to do some hill training.  On the Nike marathon course there are a couple tough hills, mostly within the first 6-7 miles of the course, but there are also some more hills around miles 18 and 20.  I haven't done TCM before, but based on what I hear, there is a steep hill on Mississippi River Blvd. as you near Summit Ave, and then Summit Ave is a steady climb for a couple miles - all of which is within the last 6 miles of the marathon.  So if you haven't done hill training, you could really be in for some trouble during both these races.

Team in Training helps prepare us by doing hill repeats at the Lock and Dam near Ford Parkway.  Tonight was our first session of hill training, and we started out strong with five hill repeats.  For those that have never tried running up and down this road, it is not easy - especially with the humidity that we had tonight.  Luckily I have been doing some hill training for the past couple weeks near our house.  There is a specific pathway that leads out of the creek bottom and it is even steeper than the Lock and Dam road.  Usually when I've tried running up the creek pathway hill I hit my absolute maximum heart rate.  That came in handy tonight because in the past a session of five hill repeats has been very difficult, with multiple breaks.  Tonight it was tough but bearable, and I didn't take any breaks between doing the repeats.

Our next group training is on Saturday and I think we are bumping up our mileage from 4 miles to 6 miles.  That is basically a 10k, which is 6.2 miles.  That will be the farthest I have run since last July, and I'm looking forward to running it with the team.  I'm already meeting some really cool teammates that I enjoy running with and it helps make the runs more enjoyable, which is part of the benefit of training with Team in Training.  In the meantime, I will need to do a session of cross training and a shorter run (2 to 3 miles) - so hopefully the weather cooperates!