hills, hills, hills

So as you may have guessed from the title of this post, we've moved started our hill training. The first phase (month) of our training was designed to establish our base, and now we've moved into the "strength" phase. Last week I motivated myself to do all the hill workouts by myself, as I had a softball game on Tuesday and was away in Woodstock Thursday through Monday.

I felt pretty strong during my first hill workout, last Wednesday, in which I basically ran up and down this one hill on the Bridle Path in Central Park for about 45 minutes. My second hill workout of the week was not as fun, as I attempted to tackle the hills of the Catskills. I made it through the workout (barely), which included some pretty intense climbs up and some steep downhill work.

Saturday, thanks to the trail-scoping and mileage counting of my parents, I completed my first 12 mile run! This was my longest run ever, and the first long run I've done on my own, just me an the iPod. Props to my madre who sat in the volvo every few miles, her arm out the window with a water bottle or gatorade and some words of encouragement. The run was intense to say the least, started out with a huge hill the equivalent of Harlem Hill in Central Park, and was basically one hill after another for most of the 12 miles. We just don't have hills quite like those in the city... but I'm all the better prepared for this weeks long run because of it!