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Nemesis Hill, I'll have to conquer this hill
if I am to complete a full 5K race |
It's now less than two weeks to my first 5 K road race (Canadian Tire YMCA Road Race) and yes, I am still very much going to be running in it. Despite the time lapse between this and my previous post, I have been very much gearing myself up to participate in the race and can tell you that I should be able to finish it in under 30 minutes. That is a huge benchmark for me because of course I know I'm not going to finish first, but I certainly don't want to be coming in last either.
Although I'm still not running a full five kilometers when I go out on my runs, I have lengthened my running distance to a point where I can go two and a half kilometers before having to resort to a short walking interval. In most cases that walk is necessary because of the incline that happens at that point and gets quite steep before leveling off again. Now that being said, I know that this is mostly a mental hurdle that I must learn to overcome.
I now use a heart rate monitor on my runs and that is showing me that I'm not putting my heart under any undue stress; although I did notice that my average maximum heart rate has dropped from the mid 170's to the mid 160's since first getting the monitor. My average heart rate through the whole five kilometer distance is in the mid 140's and has been pretty consistent there throughout. The maximum heart rate is usually hit while making my ascent on that hill that has me questioning effective strategies for overcoming it.
I have been doing research on hill training and in none of it have I ever found anything that tells you how to avoid hills. Instead it is always to take on the hill with proper form. From the head and chest up approach and also the shorter stride lengths while allowing the stride to become more of a spring with the release off the ground coming from the forefoot with a forward lean.
Because of my hesitancy to take on that hill but my desire to still add distance to the overall run interval, I've just built in a mini-loop on my training route where I circle back through an adjoining street, adding on another kilometer. Yesterday was the first day of that little add-on, which by the way starts will a short incline the equivalent of two fleets of stairs. I'm disappointed to say that I walked that ascent and then started running again once I was at the top of it.
Somewhere deep inside my head is the ability to overcome this mental hurdle because I did it a year ago when I was walking and had just started adding in resistance to my walks. The UNBC Connector Trail is a favourite of mine as it is just over one kilometer on an incline that I'm guessing to be around 15 degrees. The very first time I made that ascent, I struggled to say the least and stopped a few times on the way up including a long pause on the bench that is about halfway up the hill. I kept at it and a few trips later I was going from the bottom to the top without stopping. On my most recent ascent of that hill, I completed it from bottom to top in eleven minutes - a far cry from my twenty minute duration a year ago.
So I know I can overcome the obstacles, I just have to do it. Even that hill that is causing me grieve now, I have tackled that hill and basically won by taking bites out of it to the point where I can scale it and still keep going afterwards. The problem is getting to the point where I can run the two to three kilometers (now that I have added in that loop) and keep going up that hill. That is the only hold back now and I have to overcome that; and I will. The only question is will I be able to add in all the parts of the duration into one full run before the 5 K, because there are hills on that route that I haven't even tested myself on yet.
