Here we are in the middle of winter and ATB training is well under way. When I say well I really mean seriously we are doing more hills and more km this week? Oh - Around the Bay 30km is already sold out!!!
So as you know I joined a clinic for the race after deciding I needed some help with the training. That being said I know myself - I want something that is going to push me - not just something that is going to get me to the finish line. Enter Dr. Stevil (I actually read that in a magazine people use to describe him).
I am about 8 weeks in and I completely realize that I wasn't really doing hill training last year and I wasn't really doing interval training. For example, last year's hills consisted of 4km on my long run (North Shore) and running under the train tracks on Appleby Line four of five times. I really didn't do any intervals or "pushes" where you go hard for one minute in your long run.
Enter the clinic. One January Sunday long run (in 50kmh winds with gusts up to 80kmh) was 23km and I didn't run 23km until mid-late February last year. Oh yes there was also four one minute hard pushes in there. Oh I forgot - there was also a 2km final hard push. Oh I forgot - the hills. We started at LaSalle Park which is at the top of one of the 3 biggest hills on the ATB course. We headed East on the hills until they stopped. We turned around, did the hills again and kept going on non-stop hills until we reached Valley Inn Road (the biggest hill on the ATB course) and ran to the top, turned around and then we did the hills all over again. Once again, this was not our hill training - just a long run. Without a doubt this was the toughest run I have ever done.
So apparently all those hills were done to create power in the legs. Now here comes the speed workouts. Last night in the snow we were doing 800 metre, 400 metre, and 200 metre sprints. It has been a very long time since I have sprinted.
Just to think we haven't hit the "difficult" part of our training....
