Tuesday's lunchtime run found me back on one of my favorite training grounds, Mill Mountain. As I reported before, this popular lunchtime run takes me from downtown to the top of the city and back in right at 6 miles. The first 1.5 is a relatively flat warmup to the base of the mountain. Then it is a steady climb, about 1.5 miles (up the "old road") to the star overlook. The total elevation gain is just under 1000', most of which is in that 1.5 mile climb.
I've never really tracked my time up this route, but I thought that might be a good way to judge my fitness as I head into the last few weeks (Yikes!) of Grindstone training.
Tuesday I was at the top in 28 minutes, total run 51 minutes (970' of gain). I did not run the whole climb up. Treated it more like intervals: ran moderately hard for a couple minutes, then walked for a brief rest period before running again. Next time I will run the whole way and see how the time compares.
Run hard out there...
4 comments:
Ah, you need to run up the regular road -that is some real climb and distance there Neil. I was amazed at how much of the city you can see from up there. Yesterday was hills for me- I had to run 3x10minute uphill hard, found a gravel road that climbed solid for 5 miles; I managed to top out on the last interval - the recovery was 4 jogging downhill, intense, but it works. Keep at it, I am smelling a top ten at Grindstone out of you.
Nick
Reminds me of our own Carter's Mountain, which I wrote about a few weeks ago. It's great to have a benchmark to test yourself every few weeks.
BTW, we are running in the SNP on Sunday at 0800. Please join us. The usual suspects will be there. We are starting at White Oak Canyon and going to Hawksbill, north on the AT to Skyland, than down Nicholson Hollow to Old Rag Fire Road. 26 miles.
Sophie,
Wish I could... I have church on Sunday morning, then I have to get in some family time before I fly out for a week in Atlanta.
Carter's Mtn sounds like fun.
Nick,
I'd like to hear more about your hill workout. I'm not sure I understand how it works. How much rest between each 10 minute interval?
Sounds like my kind of workout.
email me more about it.
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