Hills are not fun.
When I was on the cross country team in middle school we ran hills on the local “ski” hill. It was a big, long, man-made hill in Lisle, Illinois called Four Lakes.
Yeah, it’s not really great for skiing but it’s TORTURE for running. (Image courtesy of panaramio.com)
Basically, our workout went like this: run as many of these as you can in the time that we’re here. Ready? Go!
It was pretty much my least favorite workout.
But hills make you strong. And hills make you fast. And hills gotta be done.
Ok fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. I did hills this morning. Happy? 2 miles up to the park, 6 Cat Hill repeats, 1 mile to a cab (I was running late for class).
Rawr! (Image courtesy of icametorun.com)
Cat Hill is about 0.2 miles up not a crazy-steep grade but enough that I, you know, feel it and wanna die. I did 6 with jogging in between.
I’m not the biggest fan of this exercise because it’s suuuuper haaaaaard (I’m whiny today) but very effective in working at maximum aerobic capacity while building straight-up strength in the leggys.
Gotta get strong in the legs if I have any hope of PR-ing in Jersey.
Excited for Jersey!
Do you run hills? Does your hill have a cool name with a cool cat on it? Is it a ski hill? I mean, an actual ski hill. Not my bunny hill. No offense, Four Lakes.
Off to my Pathology midterm. Everyone say a prayer.
Now go out and run.
Best of luck. And while I love cat hill, it’s not feasible to take a Subway from Queens so I do a short, but steep hill in Forest Park
I’m just getting back into running…jogging (sometimes shuffling!), but I remember when I used to run hills, it was torture, but I felt like a champ afterwards! Great job sticking with it!
Aww, I miss Cat Hill, which I also call At-Least-It’s-Not-Harlem-Hill Hill. Down in Northern VA, I basically have a choice between flat land and monster hills.
Good luck with your mid-term!
I’ve been a runner for several years off and on, starting with cross country in high school. I’m currently working my way up to do a marathon. I couldn’t help but notice the Lisle hill… Where did you go to school? I went to Burlington Central so I know all about the cross country hill in Lisle. Looking forward to reading more of your posts. 🙂
Hi! Small world. I was at St. Joan of Arc for elementary and middle school (where I ran cross country) and St. Francis H.S. for freshman year before I moved to Colorado. That hill was my nemesis!
Ah, St. Francis… We were always afraid of you guys because you were good. 🙂 thanks for the info!
Ha! Yeah, they got good after I moved 🙂