Hill's Hills, or "The Quagmire (of Appeasement)"

Great job on the hill workout this week. Phillip suggests calling it the Clarksville Wanderlust, Jean's calling it "Hill's Hills", and I'm thinking of it as the Quagmire. Vietnam and Iraq kinda ruined that word for us all, but "Family Guy" has redeemed it somewhat. A couple of definitions: "A soft, boggy or marshy area that gives way under foot..." "a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position: predicament."

It is just as hard a predicament as you make it, and everyone seemed to really work to get the most out of the workout.

For those of you wanting to make it up the route and workout are below. For those of you who did it, skip down and remind yourself what was important about this workout...

Here's the workout:

Warmup from Whole Foods - take Sixth Street west to the corner of Sixth and Highland. I'd take some water and drop it here.
Basically, you're going to alternate running pretty hard, then recovering.
Hard from the corner of Highland and Sixth, up Highland to the top of the hill, even with the beige brick house to your right, 701 Highland.
Easy to 9th street, turn right
Hard up 9th Street to Pressler, turn right
Easy down the hill to 701 Pressler
Hard to 6th, turn right
Easy back to the start

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1366716
Ignore the mileage - I didn't route all the loops on the map. It was a half mile warm-up, and half a mile cooldown. Four laps is about 2.2 miles, three laps is 1.65.

Half marathoners and upstarts run three full laps, marathoners four, then an easy cooldown back to the store -

back up Highland to 9th
Right on 9th
Left on Blanco
Right on 12th
Right on Lamar

Be careful with traffic, and get started as soon as you can - it's getting dark earlier now. Be particularly careful on 9th street - I'd actually stay on the right, and make sure people can see you. You will want to take some water and leave it on the corner of Highland and 6th.

Running the stretch on 9th Street has an added bonus. You're going to crest the hill before you get to the turn for the next recovery leg. Your brain and body are probably going to automatically slack when you hit the top of the hill - be conscious of this, and maintain your pace to Pressler.

I like this, because I want everyone to be thinking about not letting up too much at the top of hills. Think about it - you're using more effort to maintain a speed going uphill. When most people get to the top of a hill, they tend to let off the gas so much that they slow down. Why? If you were running the hill at the right pace, it was taking the normal amount of energy, plus some extra. When you get to the top, the energy required to maintain your pace is going to dip down naturally - there's no need to compound that by actually slowing down. Be patient, relax, but hold your pace. It's going to get easier, and you will get your breath back, unless you just ran it way too hard.

Now, on this workout, you are supposed to be cranking fairly hard, but that little stretch on 9th Street is a good way to train yourself not to let up too much at the top.

When you're running hard down Pressler, make sure you are doing it with fast turnover, and keeping the impact to a minimum like we've talked about before. Again, the maximum amount of force isn't actually simultaneous with your footstrike - it's a split second later, as your weight moves more fully over the foot, and your shoe and joints compress. Experiment with keeping your form correct, and pulling through and up out of the stride to minimize that.

On the hard parts of Highland and 9th Streets, you should be at a good, hard pace - you should be breathing hard at the end, but you shouldn't have to stop and totally suck wind. Don't stop and walk, just slow down, relax, and learn to trust that your breathing will catch back up before you have to do your next one.