Hill Sprints with Renee

On Tuesday I had an opportunity to meet one of my twitter friends. Her name is Renee and she lives here in Calgary. It was cool to meet someone from twitter because too many times you say you’ll meet up but it never really happens.

Renee and I met at the Sandy Beach hill and had an evening of hills sprints. As you all know I am preparing for the Nike Women’s Marathon, Renee is preparing for the Bluenose half marathon.

I believe that hill training is important to anyone’s training plan. If you are missing out on the hill training you are only hurting yourself in the end.

I told Renee we were going to do 6-8 hill sprints. Well Renee I looked at the actual laps we did and we ended up doing 12 hill sprints!! No wonder my legs felt so sore the next day.

The laps went like this:

1.       3:02

2.       2:59

3.       3:01

4.       4:59

5.       3:20

6.       3:26

7.       3:29

8.       3:27

9.       3:26

10.   3:52

11.   3:38

12.   3:35

I kind of fell off the map on lap 4 but pulled it back together for the rest of the hill sprints.

The key to having successful hill sprints is in my arms. I find the more I use my arms the faster I can go up the hill. Of course while running a race you don’t want to run the hills too fast or you won’t have much energy left over for the rest of the race but if you can move those arms a little it will help propel you up those hills.

Hills have actually become a favorite part of my training plan and I hope to be able to dominate them in San Fran.

What is the favorite part of your training plan?

Renee and I are getting together again on Tuesday to do a track workout. I am excited to run the track and get my speed up.

Happy Training.