Tonight was the first in this training programme for a very interesting and almost relaxed, fun session: hills. You start with a mile warm up, then find a long hill and run up it for two minutes at whatever speed you wish, then walk or very slowly jog back down for three minutes to recover, as you do with speed work. Tonight, I did this nine times. You finish off with a mile cool down.
The reason I say it’s relaxed and a bit fun is because you’re not running constantly at the same pace. You go up, you come down. It seems repetitive but, actually, I find this session tends to go by quicker than some of my long runs because I have something to focus on. I’m not just running; I’m thinking almost time to turn around and go back up the hill or almost time to go down the hill. You don’t even have to worry so much about your pace, though the slower down the hill the better. Honestly, I did the repetitions up and down the hill for almost an hour tonight and it felt like about twenty minutes.
Here’s the schedule for the rest of the week. Saturday will most likely not happen since I’ll be in Cardiff getting ready to go watch Wales (hopefully) beat Italy in the Six Nations.
| Week Seven 15-21 March | ||||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| Rest | 1M jog, then 9 x 200m hill with slow jog/walk down, then 1M jog | 7M (approx 70 mins) slow | 6M (approx 55 mins) steady | Rest | 4M (approx 42 mins) easy | 15M (approx 2hrs 35) slow |