Steps & Hills. Tough Combination

For this morning’s run with Shana, we did the steps between here and Tynemouth. Basically you run along the promenade, and every time you get to a set of steps, you have to use ‘em. I think she found this pretty hard going, so for the return, we just ran along the flat. I’m sure that the problem she had was that she kept trying to take the steps too fast - it seems to be hard for her to really slow down to the kind of pace where sweet little old ladies are yelling at you to get out of the way. The thing is, at that kind of pace, you should be able to keep going more or less for ever, us whatever hill, steps, or hellish terrain you find yourself on. Works for me anyway.

Once I’d dropped her off, I headed back out to do some hill repeats. I did a mile and a half loop to bring me to the service road at the North end of Tynemouth Long Sands, and then five sprints up the road. I’d wanted to do ten, but after all the steps, it just wasn’t in me - even by the third rep, I was wondering what on earth I was doing to myself. The times were reasonably consistent at 38-ish seconds, but every one felt like a near death experience. By that point though, I’d run just shy of six miles, and climbed around 1200 feet, making for an average gradient of around 4%(?) (I never know how to work these out).

I’m not sure if that’s an excuse or not. At the back of my mind though, I can hear those words that were always written somewhere on my school report . . . “Could try harder”.

Seventy two days to go, and I really don’t have time to be making excuses.

Workout:

• Type: Run
• Date: 04/24/2008
• Time: 09:06:48
• Total Time: 1:30:00.00
• Distance: 6.5 miles
• Average Pace: 13:51.41/mile
• Ascent: 1,200 ft
• Descent: 1,200 ft

Filed under: Cleveland Steelman, Hill Repeats, No More Excuses, Run, Whitley Bay