The Hills

I have almost 7 weeks to get myself ready for Phoenix, so this week I'm back in training mode again. How much do I hate that my 10 days off only came from being sick? It was such a waste of lethargy. If I'm not going to run, I don't want the reason to be that I'm already soaking my jammies with sweat lying in bed.

Anyway, to "ease" me back into his (evil) training plan, Over Pro Nate had me do hill repeats this week for my workout*. I had to do a 15-second hill 8x with the instructions that I should run them like I'm "chasing down a kid in the street."

I'm a literal kind of girl, so Tuesday afternoon, I told Brian and Henry we were going outside. While I ran a 2-mile warm-up, Brian put our clueless kid in his headlamp and light-up shoes (it's dark at 4:00 here). I got back from my jog to see a beam of light bobbing at the top of the driveway, so I told Henry to come down, that we were going to run the driveway 8 times.

Being four years old, he lacked the common sense and knowledge of gravity to refuse. I wish I had a video of me chasing my kid up our driveway, particularly the moment when he told me he'd rather run down than up, as if to say, "Mommy, you're so stupid to run up. It's much easier going down!"

By the eighth round, the poor kid only made it about 50 feet before dropping. The rest of the way up I had to imagine the effort of rescuing him from traffic, darn it. Some kids are so uncooperative. I wanted to say that Santa doesn't bring toys to kids who can't run a hill 8 times, but I didn't want the neighbors to call DSS. So we came in, stretched, and refueled with chocolate milk.

Nate's response to my workout was great:

Very nice, not only do you get the right effort level, but short hills are super for the development of young ankle tendons and hip flexors. You improve and you help lay the ground work for little Henry's future olympic glory. I'm giving you an A+ all around for the day.

I got an A+! Now I wish I hadn't registered Pass/Fail. And with that kind of encouragement, Henry and I will begin to work on his core this weekend to lay the foundation for next week's workout:

12 x 1 mile @ marathon pace

Good luck to the racers this weekend, especially Jess in Tuscon, who will cruise her way to a sub-3:40. Also, good luck to Aron and Jill at CIM in Sacramento. Jill is going to break 3 hours this weekend after enduring an incredibly arduous season with Nate, twice as hard as what I'm doing.

*Isn't it classic that my coach calls the speed work my "workout," suggesting that the rest of the week's miles are more or less the equivalent of a day at the spa?