One Big Hill

Yesterday Coach P had us do some hill work.

Okay, now I know some of you are saying, "Hills? There are hills in Central Illinois?" Well, it's true, there aren't many, but Coach P found one good one. It is the sledding hill when the snow falls (rumor has it it is the ONLY sledding hill - which might make it the ONLY hill in my hometown).

It was long and pretty steep . . . especially as you got closer to the top. But I am once again getting ahead of myself.

We met in our usual spot and ran over to the hill. This is a new part of town for me and I was happy for the change of scenery anyway. I ran with J . . . I've run with him before and enjoy his easy company. We got there ahead of the rest (mind you "the rest" is about 4 other people) and sipped on Gatorade as we waited for the rest to join us. Once everybody had hydrated, Coach moved us to the hill.

I took one look and thought it would be fun to sled down, or roll down - but running up over and over again? Bummer.

Coach gave us our instructions, which for those who have run hill before know are really very simple. You jog down the hill and run hard up it as many times as Coach likes. Then - yes, there's a THEN - then you run hard down the hill ("in control") and jog back up to recover - again as many times as Coach likes.

The idea is to build leg strength and cardiovascular endurance.

Jogging down was fun and I still wanted to throw my body to the ground and body roll - had my old college buddy DGJ been there I WOULD have - but turning around and facing the hill was less inspiring. The hill is fairly long and has a medium grade for about 2/3 the way - then you hit the last 1/3 and it gets very steep.

So we're told to tackle the hill and off we go . . . the first 2/3 feeling a slow burn but nothing too bad. Then you're only 1/3 of the way from the top and it's like hot fire pokers stabbing you in the legs. FUN STUFF. But once you hit the crest you can't stop - you need to keep going 5 or 6 strides over the crest before you can turn around and jog back down.

And do it all over again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

HUAH! You finish THAT part and get to start the controlled sprint down the hill to jog back up. Now those controlled sprints were really funny because frankly, few of my teammates felt in control even once. J said had somebody stopped in front of him he would have just kept on going and trampled the poor person. I decided to join in the fun and put my arms up like a roller-coaster. Somebody else was clearly doing an impersonation of Phoebe from Friends running down the hill. It's nice to laugh during the work-out but makes that jog back up harder than it has to be. I actually prefer running up the hill from jogging up it - at least you're done faster.

So we did that as many times or more than the run up.

Finally, we could return to the water stop, hydrate and head home. The run back was good but I could really feel the hills in my legs. At the end, we again waited for the others, enjoyed a little more water, and stretched. WHEW!

So Coach P tells us next time we do hills we increase the reps . . . sounds like a good time, huh?

Oddly enough, I'm looking forward to it. I'd like to see how many reps I can do at the end of the training. Yeah, just a bit kookoo.

But then I won't have to even look at that one big hill again!

Well, maybe to go sledding. :)