Friday 22 February 2008

Off road hill reps (at last!)

Route: Bow Brickhill woods hill
Distance: 4.6 miles (total), 0.41 miles (each rep), 0.52 (warm up + cool down)
Terrain: trail
Ascent / descent: +1185' / - 1185' (total), +109' / -109' (each rep)
Total time: 00:47:13
Rep splits: 4.08, 4.11, 4.13, 4.13, 4.17, 4.15, 4.20, 4.24, 4.20, 4.12

Waahoo it's getting light again as we head towards March which means I can start doing what I like - running off road after work! It is too dark to do hill reps and trail running during winter without going over on your neck so I do mostly road training but boy it's nowhere near as much fun as fleeing through woodland trails or over grassy hills on dirty muddy tracks. Ideally I'd prefer running up and down mountains but Milton Keynes isn't really known for its' alpine landscape so woods and hills it is.

I've located what I reckon is the biggest sustained off road hill near Milton Keynes to do reps on and that's exactly what I did today. A good 1200' of climbing packed into under 50 minutes of training - great.

I left work with glee in my eyes and fell shoes on my feet and did the session without too much bother but I was definitely feeling the climbs by the last 2 reps - lungs beginning to burn, heart going like the clappers and quads and calves straining nicely. I'll start upping the reps by 2 per session until I reach 15 then will look to improve speed.

Think I might be getting my daughter's cold though. Boo.

2 comments:

Davie Bell said...

Thanks for the good luck message Brian , had a good strong run , yes I've been doing a fair bit of hill running over the last three years, I was getting a bit fed up with the road scene although I still do a fair bit,but I must admit I do love the hills and the hill running fraternity are such a sociable friendly bunch, in fact I,m heading up the Pentlands tomorrow for a long run it's lovely up there, keep up the hard work hopefully meet you soon.

Cheers
Davie

Anonymous said...

Good Afternoon Brian,

I have been looking for an area like the hills in the picture to carry out some tabbing with a bergen. I am training for the TA at the moment and would love to know the route you use?
I am new to running and would like to try hill reps one or twice a week to build my fitness.
Any advice or details of the route would be appreciated.

munro1888@gmx.com

Regards

Stephen Munro (fellow balding Scot)