Hill Running

One of the biggest changes in my running since the move from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania is the continual presence of hills. In Norman, I had to hunt out hills. They are possible to find. On the east side of town, many of the country roads are filled with slow rollers as you make your way out to Lake Thunderbird. Additionally, there's Mount Scott by Lawton, but that is a 90 minute drive. In Meadville, it's more of a hunt to find the flat ground. For some visual aids, here are the elevation profiles of my "staple" run in each location.

"Easy Plateau" in Meadville:



"OU7" in Norman:



Be sure to note the scale on each graph, they are not the same! That huge hill around mile 3 of OU7, really is only 35', where as the last 2 mile climb of Easy Plateau goes up over 400'. So how do my times compare? (Both routes are about 7.2 miles)

• Easy Plateau: (21 runs from 11/09 to 3/10) average time: 56:57, pace: 7:55/mile, best time: 53:00
• OU7: (64 runs from 10/07 to 7/09) average time: 53:48, pace: 7:28/mile, best time: 48:00

The reason I'm thinking about this now is due to the training program I got from Runner's World SmartCoach for the upcoming Pittsburgh Marathon. I used my recent 10K time (38:08) and a current workout load of 51-55 miles to get a moderate training program for the marathon, which is 8 weeks away. The program suggests doing easy runs at 7:37 pace and long runs at 7:37 too at the beginning and dropping these down to 7:33 by the end of the program. Initially, I was a bit worried, since 7:37 is faster than my current easy run pace. But then I started analyzing this more throughly (OK, looking for excuses is probably a more accurate description), "This training program is probably written for someone who runs on flat surfaces." So when I went back to my training log, and saw that my times in Norman are about on par with these times, I felt my confidence return. However, there are hills in Pittsburgh...



For those of you wondering about GAP updates, I received the tour books and maps in the mail this week and just started putting together an itinerary for the trip. So hopefully next week I have some more information on this end.

On an aside, with the warmer weather, Gina and I have been firing up the barbie lately. We started using a recipe for pineapple from the current issue of Runner's World. In the magazine it calls for baking slices of pineapple brushed with butter and brown sugar, but we've been grilling it with great results. The first time we capped it off with ice cream, last night we capped it off with some vegan chocolate cake that some friends brought over. Mmm ... tasty.