Transition to Hill phase

74 days to go until the Halstead marathon argghghgh.

OK I am not that alarmed and actually I am feeling much better about things. I haven't managed to put in a amount of base miles, at least for me anyway over the past few weeks but I definitely have made big strides forward to being more consistent with getting out the door. So with that I am now entering a hill phase for the next 3 weeks. Sounds straightforward but actually it's a little more technical than I first thought.

The basic hill set comprises of

1. Spring up the hill with emphasis on vertical movement (approx 200m in length).
2. Jog until recovered at the top
3. Stride back down the hill in a controlled way.
4. Run a handful of stride outs with full jog recovery

As this is my first time doing this I was going to do only one set and see how I recover. Wow I am glad I only did do one set. Having warmed up for 15 minutes of easy running and a light stretch I got myself ready for the "springing". 

At first the movement felt a little strange but once I was into my vertical stride so to speak I could feel the legs working. By the time I reached the top of the hill I was breathing a little heavily, not uncomfortable but the legs definitely felt like they had been worked through.

I jogged around for a couple of minutes or so before striding back down. Then I went into the stride outs, the pace was around 6.30-6.40 which I imagine is where my 5k pace is. Once I completed the set I then ran home easily (around 15 minutes). 

Now today I went out for a comfortable run and could definitely felt the legs were a a little flat and my ankles and achilles feeling stiff (looks like it worked) with my average HR up about 5 beats above normal for the pace I run at for a standard aerobic run. However things loosened up and I am feeling better than before I ran.

So ultimately I will be building up to 4 sets during this type of session and of course there is an added risk here as the body will be thrown new stresses but I am hopeful it will adapt without problems and I will be monitoring recovery indicators as I normally do for any movement. One things for sure once I come off this phase successfully I should hopefully be somewhat faster than I was before it.