It's been a while since I've done hill intervals, following pulling something in my back in early December. I think hill intervals are key to getting me faster, and my back got better, so it was time to get back into it.
I was dreading it - they hurt and are really hard!!!
This hill, near our house, is about 336m and about 175 ft up or just over 800ft of elevation gain/mile. Pretty healthy as far as hills go.
Anyway, after having a rough day at work (despite it being from home!), I was now looking forward to the hill as a way to leave that all behind. I wasn't sure how my back was going to react and wanted to do at least 4, and ideally 8. The most intervals I've ever done on any hill interval work out is 6. So 8 would be uncharted territory.
I felt pretty sluggish from the start and I think having a stressful day certainly was resonating in my body. Despite that, I did it in 1:48!!!! Besting my previous record by perhaps 7 seconds. I forgot my watch in LA and kept time on my phone, running with it in my hand.
It slid from there to 2:01 and 2:06.
On #4, I died. The latter part of it I was reduced to shuffling and barely kept myself from walking. Negative thoughts coursed through me, about how this is a terrible day for hill intervals, how I'm not feeling it at all, I'm not having fun, everything hurts, things are not right. I comforted myself knowing that I would have accomplished my 4, the minimum, and could go home when I'm done. Needless to say, the time sucked, at 2:31.
And felt exhausted. I was pretty sure I was going to go home. After catching my breath at the top of the hill, I started trudging down. It sucked. My quads were complaining at every step. I felt weak and dizzy. But a faint voice in the back of my mind pleaded with me not to quit yet. It said, "take a jogging break, as you were going to, then see how you feel." This voice also said that you don't get better by quitting when things get tough.
So I got down, went to the car to put on a warm jacket (I was so slow going up and down I started getting cold), and started jogging. I felt so shitty that even jogging was hard. I walked a big part of it.
But as I was getting back, I found myself not wanting to end it yet.
So I found myself back at the start line. Uttering "what the fuck are you doing?" I pressed the "Start" button on the phone's time and went up the hill. My goal was just to make it up the hill without walking. Just to prove to myself that when I thought I had nothing left, I can squeeze out one more. So I took it pretty easy. It didn't feel like a sprint anymore, but a moderate uphill jaunt.
Well, moderate or not, I got 2:27, beating the previous time. And it didn't feel too bad!! Well, now this was a lot easier than I expected, let's do one more. And so I did, in 2:26. My first negative split! And still feeling not too bad. Maybe the first 4 were just warmup, and now I'm actually in gear. Now I knew I was going to do 8.
The next one was another negative split at 2:21. And still feeling not too bad. So I knew I could do better. My goal for the last one was a 2:15. I decided to take it easy on the first half, so I could floor it on the second. It's the second half where I found myself losing a lot of time. So that's what I did... and got a 2:07!!! A far cry from the first couple of times, but those don't count for much thanks to fresh legs. What a comeback!
I felt so happy at the accomplishment and still do. My day went from bad to awesome in a heartbeat! And motivating myself to bounce back without anyone else being there to push me is a big confidence booster too. The Ultrarunning mantra of just keep moving forward really helped. Right when I felt the shittiest, I told myself that I would just do a little jog instead of quitting. When jogging got hard I walked. And then I told myself I would just do one more. And then I caught my wind.
Right when you feel the worst, just keep going just a little bit longer, and you'll discover that you have more than you think you do.
