Thursday, March 12, 2009

Hill workouts on windy days

I've established that Mondays are the snowy days. Well, Thursdays are the windy days, and usually the colder-than-normal days. I know this because Thursdays are now hill repeat days, and every time I've done a hill repeat workout, it has been windy and cold. The degree of coldness has fortunately become a lot less severe, but that still doesn't mean I enjoy running when the windchill is 15 degrees in March. But again, at least it was sunny.

I'd never done hill repeat workouts before this season. I always just sort of ran up the hills when I came to them, which given where I run is certainly often enough. Hills have never really been my strong suit when it comes to running. I got good at them on the bike a couple of years ago, before my power-to-weight ratio started to suffer, and not because my legs weren't as strong... but anyway. I'm 6' tall, which if you didn't realize, is pretty tall for a female. By default I am going to be more gravity-challenged than your average female runner. In other words, I suppose while it might be physically possible for me to get down to 120 pounds, I don't think I'd be able to run very fast. Yet for some reason I actually kind of like this workout. There's just something kind of fun about going all-out for a few repeats. It also breaks up the run nicely. So in spite of the wind and cold and having to wear gloves, a hat, tights, etc. yet again, it was a good workout.

I also booked my trip to St. Croix for the 70.3 in May. I signed up for it months ago but finally sat down and got a hotel and a flight. In my research though I learned that one, there is a very good chance that my bike will not arrive on the island at the same time as I do because the last leg of the flight is on some prop plane from Puerto Rico, and two, it is probably the hardest half ironman out there. I was intimidated before, but after reading several race reports, I am even more intimidated now. At least I'll get a very mini vacation out of it, going down Friday to Tuesday. Glad I set it up to not leave the day after the race because that is never fun at all. I should try not to think about it though because three weeks from today I'm leaving for California and I definitely have to get through that one first!

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