For some reason I accepted Steve's invitation to a brutal beat down up the ampitheater rock trail this afternoon. I'm glad I did..it was fun, at least for the masochist inside me that is only allowed out to play once or twice a year.
We jogged up the first quarter mile up the amp. trail until it starts to get really steep, then we made that our starting point for a 1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1 min. interval workout. We went up and down for those intervals with a 1 to 3 minute rest at the bottom between intervals.
WOW - I would not have made it through that workout on my own I don't think. Mentally it was pretty tough to get started on the 4 and 5 minute sections.
But it felt great to actually do it and bust out a solid workout.
Definitely the hardest 3 miles of running I can ever recall doing.
Totals:
- 4.5 miles including a very 3/4 mile warmup and cool down.
- 2630 Feet ascent/descent (that's a 22% avg grade up and down by my calculations...ummm...kind of steep running)
- 147 Avg HR including all the rest minutes
- 1:25 total time (including 23 minutes of stopped/rest time)
Steve was great to run with on these intervals. I was able to out sprint him at the end of most of the shorter ones, but he had me beat on the longer 4 and 5 min. intervals. It was great to have him up there as a target on the longer ones. I went out much slower than him on those and was able to nearly reel him in each time except the 2nd 4 min. interval in which he killed it and went strong the whole way.
On the last 1 minute interval I went completely all out from the get go, and was flying, and stumbling a couple times on the steepest parts, and after 30 seconds everything went on fire and I thought I would be stopped in my tracks. But I kept pushing for fear of getting caught by Steve, and apparently he hit the wall at 45 seconds and I was able to keep quite the gap on the last lap.
It was super fun and motivating to have someone to push and be pulled/pushed along by...thanks for the invite and the butt kicking Steve!
Now that I'm sitting here...I realize I need to get out and shake out the legs for a couple more miles of flat stuff to loosen up and get out some of the lactate. That was pretty intense. On the initial descent on each interval, the legs felt kind of like jello, but it was good practice to run moderately fast down as well.
Good times....and WOW! How about the weather in December in Boulder today?!?! Absolutely stunningly gorgeous...we were out there in shorts and t-shirts on a 50 degree afternoon in the sun and dry trails. So awesome.
A ranger informed us a mother black bear and her cub were lingering at the trail head a quarter mile down the trail and that if we saw them, just to make a lot of noise. I don't think with all my wheezing, grunting, and heaving they were going to be coming anywhere near where we were though.
Saw JV running up the trail at one point looking strong.
****Later
Ran a shake out 3.4 miles and was surprised by the contrast and how easy it felt. I ran up Table Mesa to the end before it starts up to NCAR and back home - 340' of elevation gain over about 1.5 miles, and was surprised at how easy it felt to run up that in the 7 to 8 min mile range. Then coming back home 1.8 miles in 6:00 flat pace felt almost effortless. Kind of cool what a brutal workout will do to the mind/body in making other stuff seem really easy. 6:58 pace for 3.4 miles...I intended to go for a really easy few mile additional cool down, which would normally be 8:30/mile over that ascent/descent, but that pace felt smooth and easy so I just went with it...kind of a cool feeling. I like the immediate result of the hard hill workout...I guess we'll see how I feel tomorrow.
