Uphill both ways

I'd meant to write about this earlier but the day got away from me on Friday. Actually, we went on an impromptu outing to Newport Beach and had a great time. Such an outing is a bit out of character for the LB clan, but it was a good thing.

Anyway, on Friday I went on a six-mile run but wasn't intending on running six miles. I'd only ran once earlier in the week (though i had a pair of stupid weight training sessions so I wasn't completely inactive). I had the chance to run around my neighborhood in the morning so I did.

I actually tackled the hill by my house. It's a hill that I've ran up many times before, except I've only ran up to where the sidewalk ends, just about the point where it goes from steep to really steep. So I don't get the brunt of the hill.

On Friday, I made myself run up the hill and all the way down to the other side of it before turning around and scaling it again.

Hills are tough, of course, but how tough was on display right on The Polar. I was around the 1.5 mile mark when I got to the real steep part of the hill, just beneath the top. My heart rate had been around 170 at the base, but by the time I was at the top it was hovering around 180. My HR is never at 180 before the 2-mile mark. As soon as I started to go back down the other side, it went quickly down. It got to about 165 when I was nearing the bottom.

I ran until The Garmin read 2.85, then turned around. I went back up to 185 or so when I was nearing the top. I thought it would stay high the rest of the way but when I was down towards the bottom, it was down around the low 170s, to my surprise.

At this point, I was at about 4.5 miles and my pace was slow, of course. I wasn't exactly burning rubber up the hill. The Garmin told me my pace was at around 10:14 or so and I figured I'd try to run six miles and do so in less than an hour. It was a bit rough at first because I pushed and felt my body kind of slow after a bit. The sun was beating down on me at this point and although I'd properly hydrated myself, I didn't want to drain my resources fully.

But when I was at around the 52 minute mark, I was at about 5.16 miles so I knew I could get to my goal. Eventually, I got closer to my house and I was doing great. I got to six miles at 59:43 so I was just under the hour mark.

Here are my stats for the run, according to The Polar - Time: 1:00:18; Avg HR: 174; Max HR: 190; Calories burned: 1,051.

I'll be running that hill more often now that I've scaled it back-and-forth for the first time. I suppose I can set a goal as far as time goes, run six miles over and back and see if I can get under the time it took me Friday. The Mud Run is coming up shortly so I would probably do well to run that once a week from now until then.

Next time, I'll leave earlier so the sun won't take a toll on me.