Hill training, day 1

And let the good times begin! Tonight was the first night of hills training for this session, but I don't mind them. In fact, I think I'm getting quite good at them. You just have to listen to all the voices in your head, telling you what to do, and then run. Simple, right?

We did a quick warm-up loop of just over 1.5km, before tackling good old Centre Street. While it's not really far enough away from the Running Room to get a good solid warm-up in, it is the perfect hill to train on. There are these beautiful Lion arches greeting you at the base of the bridge and at the top, which we runners use as our start/finish points. Starting at the bottom of the hill, you start to run up, at a decent pace. Hit the first lion, and increase to tempo effort - not pace, but you should be pushing as hard as you do during a tempo run - once you hit the second lion, you can slow down and turn around, repeating the same pacing to the first lion, and then back to the bottom to get the heart rate down. We started with 4 repeats tonight, and I'll say they all felt good. I didn't eat before running tonight, but I didn't feel like I couldn't make it to the end, which is good.

Had another meeting at the Hospice today (I decided to go down, last minute) which was, once again, a total waste of time. Seriously, how many times and different ways are we going to say the same thing??? Oh, and I love the "thanks for meeting with us today, we'll be sure to get right on the transfer when we RETURN TO WORK ON MONDAY"!! W.T.F?!?! These people have been on me to move Dad since June 10th, and now it'll wait till Monday (that would be July 26th, in case anyone is following along)? And that's just to file the paperwork. That doesn't mean anything is really happening, and nothing could happen for weeks...months...argh!!! Had a nice visit with Dad, as we filled out some questionnaire about his past history (although his memory and mine appear to be remembering different things...). I then drove home, parked the car and walked back into work.

Came home and was so tired (really musttry to go to bed at a decent time one of these nights) I set the alarm on my cell and fell asleep on the couch till 5. Got up, changed for running and came down to the Running Room. It was the 20-minute challenge tonight, but pretty much anyone who showed up for a clinic run (which is most groups) got the 20-minute hat. Yay, a free hat and a 15% coupon. Cool!

After hills, we returned, stretched and a few of us headed over to the Barley Mill for a brew. Need to replenish fluids and calories...I had my usual pint (just one) and tried a new sandwich tonight...an avocado and tomato melt. It was quite tasty...whole grain bread, toasted with tomato, avocado, Dijon mustard, mozzarella cheese and sprouts, with a side fruit salad (mainly huge pineapple chunks, which is fine by me). It was filling but not overly and quite satisfying. We'll see how it does at weigh in tomorrow! I usually don't eat at the pub, but I was just too tired to eat at home tonight.

Well that's it for me. Nothing too exciting coming up...usual Thursday steady run, visit with Dad, work and boot camp on Friday, visit with Dad, retro 10-mile run on Saturday, through the hilliest area of Calgary (oh boy!), visit with Dad, sleep in on Sunday (no LSD, thanks to 10-miler) and finally a visit with Dad. I'm sensing a pattern!

Later,