Hitting the Hills Today

After having missed yesterday morning's run (was not feeling well), I decided that I needed to make this morning's run more challenging this usual in order to get my money's worth. So I decided to hit the hills on the Creek Turnpike trail--at least, as much as one can on that trail. I started at Sheridan and ran west. This put me on the Sheridan/Yale hill right off the bat, which is a short but relatively steep hill. At 5:30 this morning, it was still dark, and the run under the "tree tunnel" that covers the hill was pretty fun. The crickets were so loud through the trees that I couldn't even hear my MP3 player. Speaking of which, as I approached Harvard, not even two miles into my run, my MP3 player died. I hope it's just the battery needing a recharge.

I hit the hill west of Harvard (downhill, of course) about 2 1/4 miles into my run. I turned around about a quarter of a mile past it and came back to the short, steep hill (uphill, of course), then moved on to the stretch between Harvard and Yale which, when heading east, has quite a few subtle inclines, all of which are much more noticeable when one is trying to recover from the Harvard hill.

I could tell that it was a little after 6:00 as I headed back down the hill between Yale and Sheridan and past my starting point at Sheridan, because I started seeing quite a few more people on the track. The sun was starting to light up the track as I continued east toward Memorial.

At Memorial, I came up on a couple of friendly runners on the hill. They were clearly exhilarated by the Memorial hill. A half mile later, I turned around again and hit the Memorial hill from the other side. On the west side of Memorial, I began to relax and coast back to my starting point at Sheridan. Not a bad hill run for Tulsa.

Monday's run was the neighborhood 7-miler I used to take every Wednesday when I was training for OKC. It was nice to be on that old track again. My hope was to boost my speed a little, but I ended up being a few seconds per mile slower than what I've been doing on the Creek trail. Nevertheless, it was a nice change of scenery. And I hit 100 miles for the month, which I have not done since my OKC training.

Saturday's run was an awesome 12-mile hilly run with the Runner's World group, the FOB Four in particular. I've really been enjoying the group and the pace. This next month or two should be pretty interesting, as we increase mileage and try to keep it around 9:10.

7-30-09
Distance: 8.01
Time: 1:11:04
Avg. Mile Pace: 8.54
Rabbit Count: 9

7-27-09
Distance: 7.12
Time: 1:00:56
Avg. Mile Pace: 8:33
Rabbit Count: 4

7-25-09
Distance: 12.52
Time: 1:56:38
Avg. Mile Pace: 9:18