Great night!

High Cliff Hill Repeats

I am in the 3rd week post achillies injury, so most days my legs only reluctantly cooperate.  My hill running has been a necessary evil, it is good work, but hard work.  Talking with Scott Jurek at the 2010 24 hour world championship, he said that it is not the lack of uphill training that kills WS100 or Leadville runners, it is the downhill running that people are not ready for.  My goal for Leadville is to really work on my downhill running.

Last night was a little gem - Sometimes in the middle of fumbling to get back into shape, you get a workout that makes you feel like you are in top shape.  I have forgotten how that feels and even if it is only for1 night -God has surely blessed me!

Last night I had to work a bit later and did not get out to the High Cliff (HC) State Park until 6:30pm.  I love spring running - It was 43F 6-8 mph winds with snow on the ground but not on the road or paved trail.  My mission was to run the tower hill road loop 10 times.  5 loops up the longer, but easier road hill and down the short and steeper trail hill and 5 loops the other way.

There were a fair amount of people walking up and down to the tower and some traffic, it is nice to see people getting a workout on this beautiful day. 

I was surprised on the 1st time up how easy the hill felt, this is foreign to me.  I could have run much faster but I wanted to be patient as steady wins the race.  Coming down the short and steep hill brought my quads back to reality - I might have bombed it a bit too fast.  The next long hill up felt crappy and I wondered if I would get the 10 loops in tonight, but that was the last time I felt bad.

I never pushed hard although I could have, just a nice moderate pace the whole workout.  8:00 it was getting dark and I had the park to myself for the rest of the run.  In the dark you could almost hear the snow melting and could hear the little rivers of water from melting snow flowing down to the lake.  The view of lake Winnebago was awesome - In the distance you could see the city lights of Menasha and Neenah.  It was dark and cloudy, but the snow reflected enough light to know where the road was at.

I never did get tired, although I could tell my legs were getting a little tight from the downhill running.  I felt like I could have run all night, but my goal was to only half bake my legs - So I stopped at 12 loops.  It might be awhile before I have another one of these.  Racing is nice, but the pure joy of runs like this is why I run.