Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Pain-free hills :)

I decided to do a hard hill workout today. I had to get up really early because Loren had a dentist appt at 7 am (which later turned out to be a false alarm...it's tomorrow not today, so I get to get up really early again tomorrow), and I was out the door by 5:20 am. It was light, though :)! Love summer!

I went UP UP UP the hills today. Started at my house (4350 feet elevation; 1326m) and over the course of 3 miles I walked uphill almost to the Bonneville shoreline (SLC used to be a giant lake, Lake Bonneville, which receded thousands of years ago) to reach 5100 feet (1555m). Took me just over 34 min to do the 3 miles (just under 5k) up that very big hill; I was pleased with my 10:47 pace to the top. Then I walked back down (much faster, of course!), and my overall pace was 10:13/mile (6:21/km) for the 6 miles (9.65 km). Average HR was 147 for the whole workout. On the 3rd uphill mile (the steepest), my HR was 155 on average. I could have pushed a bit harder for the first 2 miles, but I was tired and it took me a while to warm up to the idea of working hard :). But I'm glad I did this workout - it is pretty similar to the steep leg of the Portland-to-Coast relay, which has 900 feet of elevation increase in 4 miles. I plan to do this one again, and go farther next time!

Oh, yes, almost forgot - I had no IT band or piriformis pain on this workout. My R hip was a little tight but that was it. YAY!

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