The sweet taste of hills

It was fartlek training today. Fartlek doesn't refer to any bodily function. It is merely a Swedish (I think) word meaning "speed play". And so it was, a good fun session which I like. It involves running fairly easily and then putting in several hard efforts as you wish. In this case it is when the coach wishes. A coach with over 20 years experience in coaching long/middle distance runners (most notably the 4th place finisher in the Olympic marathon in Athens 2004 and Sydney 2000 in his younger days, also another runner who has done 61' in a hill half marathon) and a good runner in his own right (just sneaked under 40' in recent 10k, will be 60 in a few months).

Starts off with a bit of a warmup, a moderate run on flat roads along the valley. Effort for 400m. "Recovery" if you could call that is up a fairly steep hill which is about 600m long, a bit more recovery on a rare bit of flat road. Hard for 100m flat then round a sharp bend for about 100m uphill, recovery down a flight of steps, repeat once. After this it becomes a bit hazy trying to get breath back and clear lactic acid in the legs. It mostly involves jogging on the flat bits and doing hard efforts up long and short hills, some of which pretty steep.

Legs felt a bit weak on some of the flatter bits where the speed demons just went for it. Come to the steep hills I found that I still had a bit of a kick in the tank. Maybe its my lack of weight or something. Just able to find that extra bit on. Managed to overtake someone with a half marathon PB of 75' on a sharp rise and also getting close whenever the road turned skywards. The last effort is probably the longest one and it is flat. Unfortunately my legs were a bit weak by then but could still hold on to finish with a bit of a sprint. Well no, the real ending was bending over with hands on hips gasping for the last bit of cold crisp air. Total distance is around 11km including warmup and cooldown runs.

Don't think I'm a 100% yet. Still a bit light on the flat sprints. But at least its a good session. A large part of running is mental, if you feel right, you will go well. If you believe you are good at a certain aspect, the belief makes you push harder or train more in that particular area. Ah the sweet taste of hills when you feel that you are just floating up them.

Location 53°N 1°W