Run 4 the Hills Coaching

No Murph for me because no way am I surviving 100 pull-ups or burpees…7 miles with 4x 0.25 mile hill repeats on this disgustingly humid day. Thankful to those who have given their lives for our freedom!

Today was a lesson in what NOT to eat for breakfast before running. Although really, I knew better, I just wasn’t thinking straight I guess. I was craving fried potatoes this morning so I had those with bacon and eggs and that was wayyyy too much bacon grease for my stomach before a run. Helloooooo acid reflux. I planned to run 7, but with how hard it was to keep breakfast down I decided to cut it short 😅. 21 miles for the week!

Back to the track! Another 80+ degree day but that actually doesn’t bother me at all. It would have been nice to be able to refill my water bottle at the track but of course the water fountain was turned off so I just rationed what I had. My first 800 ended up at a 6:37 pace so I tried to keep that for the first three, and then did the last two a little bit faster. It was hard on my lungs but I could have done more if I wanted to, so I was happy with it! A good first track workout in…a long time.

86 degrees, feels like 88? Why not do my longest run in over a year? 🤣 I had planned to do a tempo run today, but decided that it was too hot for that so I did my weekly long hill run instead. I’m grateful for the water spigot next to the non-functioning water fountain I ran by halfway through so I could refill my handheld! Stay hydrated out there friends!

First paddle of the year! It was 80 degrees out and we had no plans for the day so I said let’s take advantage of it! Started off strong with 4.5 miles of paddling, exploring a few coves we’d never been in. I was supposed to do the heavy lift and HIIT I’ve been procrastinating all week…but this was way more fun!

First 20 mile week since February! Only my 4th 20 mile week since March of 2025. Zero goals to get back to 30 mile weeks at this point, don’t want to push my luck. Quality over quantity!
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Joined and for a hill workout today…but they were doing 6 repeats on the 1/2 mile climb, and I tapped out after 3. It would have been 10 miles if I did the whole thing and I didn’t think today was the day to do my longest run in a year, especially not with that amount of climbing. Hopefully I’ll get there soon though!

Those clouds straight ahead were rather ominous, but at least there was also some blue skies and I didn’t get rained on! 8 miles at moderate effort. I looked at the split for the first mile, it was 8:08 and I thought that would be a nice average for today’s run, but I ran the rest of the run by feel. Somehow my average actually matched that first mile pace! Strava so kindly told me that this was my second fastest 10k for the year…the first must have been Strawberry Plains cause my fastest definitely wasn’t Blue Ridge 🤣.

Last week’s tempo run at 7:20ish pace went well so I decided to do it again. I have to admit that I’m using my watch to keep myself on pace instead of running by feel, but it’s the only way to work on pace consistency right now, when I can run 7:00 pace like it’s nothing at the beginning of the run and it takes everything I have to maintain that 7:20 at the end. It seems like 2 fast miles is really the limit for my lungs, but hopefully if I keep pushing the third mile it will get easier…long way to go to get to half marathon at this pace 😬. I had to walk a bit in mile 5 to catch my breath before dragging myself through the cool down behind hubs.