Hey there fellow runners! I'm squeezing in my last little bit of running before my next race, so it's nothing too exciting but still qualifies to join in on @jumowa's #runforsteem challenge. ;) All the long miles are in the bag, and at this point in my training I am just focused on staying healthy and working on good technique to make it through 13.1 miles of mostly downhill running. We have gotten some truly beautiful days to take advantage of, which always helps me stay motivated with lacing up my shoes and getting outside.
I've definitely been doing a bit of downhill work for the past couple of months, but thought this past Saturday would be a good day to throw in a short workout with specific repeats. Our neighborhood is quite hilly anyway, but we have one particular hill I have trained on in the past when working on climbing strength. I have a tendency to want to attack a climb, but then coast on the way back down. Since this next race will only have the latter I have been working on being more active on the descent instead of just cruising. This will hopefully help me be able to keep a better pace for the race as a half marathon is still a long distance regardless of the course. I don't want to lose my legs again from starting out too aggressively.
I started out with about a 2-mile warm-up, which actually included a decently long hill right outside the neighborhood. I looped back around to take on the hill for 4 solid repeats, though those were book-ended by another hill going there and then to get back home. You can see my attempts on the elevation map from my Garmin.
You can see on the one repeat I rested for a few seconds at the top, but then after I decided just to go for it since I was keeping my workout short. I know I always can use work on keeping my intensity up even when I start to get fatigued. The downhill portions are actually quite fun to train, even when really working on my technique. The only bad part is you have to make it back up the hill each time. ;)
I still definitely need to pay attention to maintaining a consistent pace, but I am feeling confident in my ability to hold my form on the descent. I've never done this race, or a course anything like it, so if nothing else it will be fun to see what I can do on race day!
Thanks to all of the @runningproject and #runforsteem crew for helping keep me motivated. Look out for a contest post at the end of this week to perhaps get a little reward for paying attention to my running posts. ;)
