Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Today was a rest day, and the first day of a rest week. I'll keep the intensity the same as I have for the past few weeks, but I'll cut the volume about in half, and I should be ready to rock for the 15K on Saturday.

This is a rest week, so I don't plan to run more than 5 miles daily until the weekend. Catherine and I went to the rec center this morning where I ran an easy 4 miles on the treadmill. My legs are a little sore from last week but otherwise fine.

I joined the volleyball team when I was a junior in high school. Our coach, Coach Nelson, was a former football strength-training coach, and he pushed us accordingly. Most of our workouts took place on the court, in the weight room, or on the track, but twice a week Coach Nelson would make us run The Hill.

Obviously, The Hill was a hill, and a beast of a hill at that. It wasn't that long, but it was steep (very steep), loose, and gravelly (most of us wore soccer cleats). There were 5 or 6 different turnaround points along The Hill. If we were running to the first point, our intervals would start every minute. Intervals to the top started every six minutes. The ultimate goal was to run The Hill to the top 6 times in one hour. Urvish and Cameron, who both ran cross country in the off season, did it my junior year, and Cameron did it again my senior year (Urvish had already graduated), but I don't think anyone else had accomplished the feat for as long as the volleyball team had been running The Hill. I don't think I ever managed more than 5 or 6 repeats.

The funny thing about The Hill was that it didn't seem like it should be so hard. And for one or two repeats, everything felt fine. But by the time you reached the top for the third time, you'd be "running" slower than you could walk (or walking slower than you could crawl), while your legs and lungs burned more than they would if you were sprinting.

I only mention this because I climbed the Bonneville Shoreline Trail up the West Side of City Creek Canyon this morning. As I approached the ridge above Ensign Peak, I took my second walk break and thought, "Wow, I've never really done anything like this." Then I remembered I had.

Running on the trail is nothing like running on the road. It's frustrating to be so slow in the hills, but I'm not discouraged. I ran faster and farther on the trail this week than I did last week, and I'll be even faster next week. Hills make you strong.

Unless you sprain your ankle on the descent.

This morning I ran an easy 5K on the treadmill and then lifted weights. I think my miles outdoors are starting to ruin the treadmill for me.

I ran three 5-minute intervals on the treadmill this morning, running at an 8:13 pace between. My idea was that I would alternate between hill intervals and 10K-pace intervals. After this morning's run, however, I think I may need to rethink my hill intervals in terms of pace, duration or both.

I ran my first interval at the same 8:13 pace I had been running but on a 10 percent incline. I finished the interval, but I was worried I might throw up. After 5 minutes of recovery, I ran a 5-minute interval at 10K pace with no real problems. After another 5 minutes of recovery, I started another interval on a 10 percent incline. Because the first hill repeat took so much out of me, I slowed the pace to 8:30. It wasn't nearly enough, and I abandoned the interval at 3 minutes.

I had hoped to run on steeper inclines to get the same effect as running faster on flat ground while improving my ability to run faster up hills. In theory, the idea is sound, but in practice I need to tweak the intervals a bit. The 5 minutes at 10 percent were much harder than 5 at 10K. The incline and speed I used today would be great for shorter intervals, but for 5 minute intervals I need to decrease the incline or my speed or both.

I wonder how slow I'd need to run to do 30-minute "tempo" runs at 10 percent.

I ran an easy 5K on the treadmill this morning and then lifted weights for a bit.

This race was the first at which I wore my Garmin (or any timepiece, for that matter), so it was the first time I could go back and see how my pace held up over the course of the race. Splits were as follows:

• Mile 1: 5:55
• Mile 2: 6:02
• Mile 3: 6:11
• Mile 4: 6:14
• Mile 5: 6:13
• Mile 6: 6:11
• Mile 7: 6:14
• Mile 8: 6:22
• Mile 9: 6:27