Hills, Strength and Speed

Yesterday I did my first set of hill repeats.  I'm enjoying doing warm ups that aren't just about running.  Doing some pushups, squats and lunges get my blood flowing and my body prepared to run.  I then jog half a mile before starting my sprint intervals.  Hill intervals are a little different than sprinting on flat ground.  Since you can't go as fast, you also can't stress the muscles and tendons as much. It's till hard, trust me on that, which has some added benefit.  

My first set of hill repeats consisted of running uphill on ~3% grade for 100m.  The first one was done at a 7:30/mile pace, and the subsequent ones were at 7:00, 6:30 and 6:10 pace.  I gradually increased so as not to stress my body too much.  After four of these, I was done.  I walked down the hill as my rest interval.

Tomorrow, I'll do my second workout doing 40m all-out sprints.  I'm curious to see how it goes this week.  I'll follow it up later this week with more hill intervals.  Over time, I'll increase the number of these.  At the same time, I'm paying close attention to my body. I've managed to cause myself problems in the past with overzealous attempts at improving my speed, and I'm not about to repeat that mistake.  

Hill repeats improve strength, but they also help with speed.  They're one of my favorite workouts.  At some point, I'll go back to doing some fast downhill efforts as well.  I've done a fair amount of that in the past few years and there's no question but that they've made me stronger and more durable.  I'm intrigued by the thought of preparing myself for the half marathon in St. George next November.  Last year, on minimal training, I managed a decent time, which included a pretty fast 5 and 10K during that race.  Imagine what I might do with adequate training?  But, first things first.