Week 6 - Day 3: Jail Hill

I finally got up the courage to go run jail hill at 5:30 a.m. this morning. I have been a little afraid of the dark and even the cold that early in the morning. But today, I faced the fear. Hooray! It snowed last night just enough to make the roads icy, but the sidewalks were okay. I parked at the rec center, ran over to Rayfield's and started the hills. I had on my UA Cold Gear with a fleece jacket on top and never got cold, even though it was 30 degrees. The bad part is that I am totally disappointed in my time. The total mileage was 2.88 miles and my time was 29 minutes. Good grief. I was supposed to be running up that hill at 5k - 10k pace...I used the lap timer on my GPS and found that I ran the hills in between 9:00 and 9:30 minutes/mile. That is way off pace. And I coasted back down so slowly that it was over 11:00 minutes/mile! The last time I really think I did much better than that, but I wasn't using the lap counter so I am not sure. It was dark this morning while running, so I couldn't really keep a good watch on my time. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that I had just rolled out of bed, or the weather, or if I was just lazy. I forgot to wear my heart monitor, so I'm not sure what level of exertion I was at - although I was very winded by the top of each hill repeat. I guess my question is: When coolrunning says run hills at 5k-10k pace...do they mean your 5k-10k pace on flat ground, or your 5k-10k pace while on a hill??? Because I figure my 5k-10k pace is pretty close to 8 min/mile...but that will be different on a hill. If it's supposed to be your 5k-10k pace while on a hill then maybe I didn't do that bad...but I'm not sure that is the case.

In other news, I have to mention this - Tracy went ahead and ran her hills YESTERDAY - IN THE RAIN! Now how about that?!?! She said she deserves the dedication award, and I'll have to agree...man I wish I had a picture of that to post for motivation!