Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Long hills

Monday night was a night of doing 'long' hill repeats.. The plan was for 400-600 yards, 3-4 times.

The hill I ran the week before thankfully is a good half mile longer, so to get to a long hill, I just keep running up. And up.

Blah.

So, the start & stopping points netted out to a .29 mile hill length I was running. Elevation looked like this:



My goal was to not blow up the hill the first time up, so that I had some gas in the tank at the end.

Splits wound up being a 9:38/mi pace, a 9:40, ending on a 9:20.

Overall run was 4.11 miles in 40:20 (9:48 pace).

Glad that's over though. :)

Tuesday was an easy 4 miler, which was around and around the indoor track. The guy I met at the gym a few weeks ago looking to run a marathon next year was there, though, so I did my 4 miles with him. He invited me to a 4 mile run a couple of towns over on St. Patty's Day weekend.. I guess a bunch of folks from the gym will be there, all wearing yellow shirts. Sounds good to me.. I just need to figure out how to adjust my plan, because I have a 20 miler that day.. Hrms.

Oh, and the girl that witnessed my incident at the gym was there last night too.. I got some sort of look from her. I'm sure it was one of awe and admiration.


Before I sign off, a couple of beverage reviews...

First up is Peet's house blend coffee.


(I previously tried their Major Dickason's blend.)

Both blends were a hookup from my brother in law (thanks man!). He's on the quest to find the ultimate cup of coffee. Given the quantities I consume, I'm certain I can't have the ultimate cup half a dozen times a day or whatever, so I settle for less. :)

I liked the house blend, but not as much as the Major Dickason's.. The house blend was not bitter, which was a very good thing. You can make a nice and strong cup of coffee, and not have that awful bitterness. It also was very fresh.. The beans were listed as having been roasted the week before I got the bag. I think the house blend was a little lighter bodied than the Major D's blend. Still, a very good coffee. (Peet's, I'm willing to do whatever for free coffee :) )

The other beverage entry for today is this:



This is Wells Banana Bread Beer. I love trying new things. I saw a bottle of banana bread beer in the store, and I said "Self, you've never had banana bread flavored beer. Give it a shot"

So.. my impression.. It had a distinct smell of banana bread. Absolutely. The carbonation was pretty light, but the beer had a nice rich color. Tasting it, you could definitely taste the banana bread. It had a fairly dry taste to it, and I see from the website that it's along the lines of a bitter ale, which certainly fits.

It's something I could drink a bottle of, but wouldn't want to have them all night long. An interesting experience, though.

I gave the bottle to my wife to smell the scent of the bananas and such. She was quite unimpressed, to say the least.

Keep on rockin'.

3 comments:

No Longer Using said...

holy moly hills!!!!! hmmmm i don't run hill repeats because,....! i have no good excuse. i am terrible at this so it's probably something i should work on. i'm gonna do a few speed intervals today hopefully, i guess that is my version of butt-busting. banana bread beer?! where the heck does one find that,...!!

Anonymous said...

I have never been a fan of hill repeats, but I know they help a lot in the end. One day I'll find the courage to do them again..Love the graph too!

Aron said...

awesome job on those hill repeats!!! yikes! i have only done repeats once and they were not fun :)