Good 'ol hills

There's nothing better than a hard workout. That feeling of accomplishment at the end. You know the one...the "I just kicked that workout's ass" feeling. That was last night for me. It's an endurance week (yes Mark, I know that means LONG workouts) and Thursday are hill workouts. We park at the Lowe's and run to the course for warmup..its about 16 miles to get there. Kidding...but it really is 1.25 miles..quite a warmup if you ask me! Our workout was to do 4 circuits of running up a long hill, walking down, running back up then around the block. Each circuit was about one mile long. After the cooldown, of 16 miles (haha), our total workout ended up being 7 miles.

Most people would feel quite accomplished to do a 7 mile workout. Not the MIM'ers! That didn't matter so much. For me, it was the pace I was holding. Yeah, hills kick my ass (see October 5th post), but I was actually holding really good pace times (for me). I was holding about 10:30-11 mi/min going uphill, and then on the flats I was actually holding 9:30's! My old pace time was back! Now, I probably couldn't hold that for any length of time anymore, but I was just happy that I felt good holding that pace!

After a nearly 2 hour workout (and a 16 mile cool down), we were back at the cars. I was S-T-A-R-V-I-N-G. I got home and chowed down - on a protein shake, crackers, and salad..mmmm! Oh the life of an endurance athlete....

20 miler tomorrow at 5am....to be continued.................