Short HIll Workout

 Ed -

 

Two things to mention that happened during my hills this morning: one motivational and one embarrassing.

The Motivational:

This hill that I workout on is a nice one.  Not very long, right at .21 of a mile, but pretty steep.  According to my Garmin it’s about 80 feet in climb, but it seems a whole lot higher than that.  I just know it’s steep with a flat spot about halfway where a railroad track crosses it.

This morning as I was heading down to the bottom of the hill to start my workout I passed a guy running from the other direction and heading up the hill.  He had good form and was moving at a decent clip; definitely an experienced runner.  We gave that quick runner wave thing where you flash your open palm and flick your wrist a little to the side as you toss your chin up about an inch and grunt, “hey.”

He went on his way and I did my workout.  Ten repeats of driving up the hill at a pace a little faster than 5k pace, with a jog back down and about 45 seconds of walking or standing before doing it again.  Basically, that works out to about 1:20ish splits up with 3 minutes to get back down and start the next one.  After the tenth one, that I did in 1:09 (rubber legs and gasping, baby!) I saw that same guy coming back towards the hill.  I was standing there with my hands on my knees trying to get my air back and he said, “you’re not running repeats up this hill are you?”

I stood up with my hands on my hips feeling pretty proud of myself, raised an eyebrow and waggled my head.

“Why yes I am.”

Nice to do something that’s impressive to somebody . . . 

The Embarrassing:

After my third or fourth rep I was jogging back down the hill and a deer came trotting along the yard just to the side of the road.  He was young, but had a nice rack all ready and I said, “Hey there handsome.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and gave me the big eye.  He then looked back over his shoulder as if he thought I might have been talking to somebody else then stared back at me.  Another look over his left shoulder then I swear he looked back at me and furrowed his brow.  I slowed up a little and then he just took off towards the woods.

I was left there stammering, “Dude!  I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not . . . ummmm . . .”

And then I remembered I was trying to explain myself to a deer.