Easy 2 miler & hill workout

It's been a couple days since my last blog! I ran my 7 miler on Sunday, then on Monday I went to a Zumba class with a friend. I'm trying my best to fit extra workouts into my schedule on top of my running, and what better way to do that than to do some Zumba. For those of you who don't know what Zumba is, it's kind of like a group aerobics class, but it's got great dance choreography and is set to awesome Latin music and other popular dance beats. It's lots of fun, and I definitely get a good 60 minute cardio workout. Needless to say, after my 7 mile run on Sunday and my Zumba class on Monday, my calves were killing me on Tuesday so I took the day off. I pushed my easy run to Wednesday hoping my calves would feel better, and they did!

The Charleston Distance Run has a 5 mile stretch of hills...ouch!! I have never ever trained on hills before, so this will be difficult. Yesterday I did my first "hill workout", incorporating it at the end of my easy 2 miler, for a total of 3 miles. There's a part of Saint Albans referred to as "the loop" where the street loops around and heads up into the opposite direction. At the end of the loop starts a nice big hill. I thought I would tackle this hill. At the end of my 2 miler, I beared down and sprinted up the hill. The hill is 0.08 miles on my Garmin. I felt great running up that hill! I stopped at the top where it flattens, then walked back down. I ran this 6 times. I felt great the whole time, and the 5th time up the hill I started feeling it. I was breathing much harder and walked down the hill slowly. I was going to stop there, but thought I would go for one more, so that I would have about a 1/2 mile of the hill under my belt. That last interval was definitely more difficult! But, I felt awesome after it was over. People might not enjoy these workouts, but I loved it. I honestly like to do speed workouts and intervals because it changes things up and challenges me in a different way than the long runs do. I feel like long runs take more mental effort....just knowing I have to run 7 miles seems impossible, but I get out there and do it. The hill workout was invigorating. I will certainly be doing many more of these, so I hope that I keep liking them!

Next workout: Today - 60 minutes of Zumba
Next run: Thursday - Tempo run 5 miles total, 1 mile warmup, 3 miles @ 9:45, 1 mile cooldown

Total miles for the week so far: 10