So I have spent the last two weeks in the trails running on soft surfaces and up and down hilly terrain. The loop I am doing right now is just over two miles long. I have been running 7-10 miles on this loop for the last two weeks and I am starting to get a bit tired of it, but it’s close to home and easy to get to. A couple days ago I went back to this trail and planned on 10 miles, I could only manage 5 miles. I felt terrible and was starting to get fed up. Getting back into shape is hard and when most of your runs make you feel like dog SH*t it doesn’t help. So I took two days off.
Today I decided to run my usual road loop from the house that is about 11 miles long. strangley during this run I finally started to feel good. I wore a heart rate monitor and looked at it to keep me in an easy pace range. It is over cast and damp out here in Walnut Grove but the temp is pretty warm for this time of year. So the run was quite enjoyable. I felt good but I didn’t push it; i figured that my running in the trails may have been harder than I thought and now that I am out on the flats it shows in how easy it is to run fast without using much effort.
Now this was the exact reason I decided to do most of my running over the past couple of weeks on this short looped trail. I wanted to run up and down hills and get some good hill training in. I wanted to build my fitness and strengthen my legs. Apparently it has been working. So I will head back to the trail for the next two weeks before I head off to Hawaii but I will give myself a couple runs a week on my usual road loops to give myself a bit of a break from the monotony and to let my legs see how the hills are helping me get faster.
