Saturday Hill Climb

This past Saturday was the second race in our Speed Revolution race series and unlike 3 weeks ago this one was absolutely brutal. I told everyone before we started to make sure they pace themselves and don't blow up until they are in the final 2 miles. The race was 1 mile at 2%, 1 mile at 4%, 1 mile at 6%, 1 mile at 4%, and the final mile at 2%. It really felt good when I got to that final mile but that's when I was pushing the pace so I was hurting anyway. I was only a couple minutes slower than the last race (which was a constant 2%) so I called it a victory. I made sure I didn't kill myself in training leading up to it so I think that helped a lot. Far too often I'll go into a tough session like this having done too much during the week and really suffer but I made sure I was pacing myself properly during the first 3 miles and I had some juice to crank it up to 10-11mph during the last mile.

It may seem like it's a little too early to be doing these efforts for some athletes and that may be the case for you. However I can't emphasize enough how sessions like this just take my running to a completely different level. I have to be careful and make sure they are spread out over a few weeks but when you are running that hard for a short amount of time it just seems to push your threshold to an entirely new level. I already feel better during the second race compared to the first. I still need an afternoon nap and a good meal afterwards but that's to be expected when you're running all-out for 5 miles. I'm already looking forward to the third race of the series and to watch how much they are going to benefit everyone who's doing them. The first race we had 12 people and last week we had 10, I'm amazed to see some people hold 190+ heart rates! If you're going to do efforts like this make sure you have a couple easy days leading up to it and take a good few days to recover but they will help jump start anyone's running. Happy training!