Hills on the 'Mill

I love my treadmill. Let me say that again. I LOVE MY TREADMILL.

It was cold this morning, and I was worried after Tuesday's workout that I might have more IT band pain (yesterday I did the bike & weights because I wanted to rest my IT band), so I opted to do a hard hill workout on my treadmill instead of doing a tempo workout at Liberty Park. I didn't have any IT band pain, but it was SO nice to be inside. I remembered about 8 minutes into my workout that I needed to ask Sarah if I could borrow her snowshoes (I'm going snowshoeing tomorrow with the Wasatch Walkers), so I picked up my phone and called her. I got her machine, but I knew when she called back that I'd be around to pick up. I could have taken my cell phone outside on a walk I guess, but it was nice to be inside for other reasons. Calvin woke up early (6:40 am!) and I was able to help Loren keep an eye on him. Then when Michelle woke up, she wandered downstairs and gave me the biggest smile while I was working out. That was great :).

I also love the treadmill for the hill workout part. I started off warming up at 5.5 mph, and then got off and did a brief stretch of my IT band and adjusted my IT band strap. So far, so good. Then I started in to my hill repeats. I did 4% incline at 5.5 mph for 5 min, and then recovered at 5 mph 1% incline for 1:30. I repeated this four times, and my HR was in the low to mid 160s (~85% max) during the hill intervals. Then I cooled down at 5 mph down to 3.5 mph. Total time 46 minutes and about 4.2 miles (treadmill kicked off when knocked the safety off while going to get my phone, so I'm not sure of the distance).

I love that I could do hills, because it's easier on the IT band to go uphill, and I had ZERO pain today. Yay!

I have to say that it was not particularly fun while I was doing this, but afterwards I felt awesome. Really good. Those hard workouts bring on the endorphins, and I love it.