Running hills and the hamster wheel

A few weeks ago I found myself in Atlanta, Georgia for a conference.  It proved a good time for catching up with dispersed work colleagues and all of us valuing the face to face time that is all too rare in the budget tight world of an NGO.

One of the great things about being in the United States is that this is where (modern recreational) running was born.  I mean the ‘jogger’ came from America. While the rest of us in Europe looked dismissively at those crazy Americans and their running.  Those crazy Americans had discovered something that the rest of us would soon catch on to – running is fun.  Seriously, it is.

A week in the US meant new running partners as a surprisingly large number of my colleagues are also runners.  I was all excited the first Sunday I was in town. I was going to meet a friend and she was going to take me out running.  I was so excited that I visited Big Peach Running the day before and bought new shoes.  I had also very cleverly (and for once) taken the advice of Mr Lapin – aka The Fitter One, and a veteran runner – and packed his Helly Hansen thermal top.  I was going to Atlanta in February people – I was leaving the comfort of 32C and facing a 15 degree drop in temperature.

Would you have gone out?  Well maybe you would have.

Sunday arrived, I opened the curtains and half of Atlanta has disappeared under cloud.  Rain and wind lashing at the window added to the overall effect of one flipping horrible day outside.  There was no way with only Mr Lapin’s top as my protection against the elements was I venturing outside for a run.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen I cancelled my Sunday morning run and stayed in bed reading a book.  Thankfully my friend understood my wimpy ways but still went out proving she is far more hardcore than I am.

The next opportunity for an Atlanta run was the following Tuesday.  An early finish and no evening meetings meant another running colleague and I headed out into what was now a sunny crisp spring afternoon.

The route took us to Centennial Park and down the hill to the Georgia Tech Campus.  I suddenly found myself in a quintessentially American location – the Campus complete with Frat houses with strange Greek symbols on the balustrades indicating God knows what Kappa Kappa Pi Delta?  I had stumbled onto the set of Animal House - that being my most immediate point of reference!

Animal House Frat House

Louche young men were hanging around, music systems were battling it out across streets, the odd beer-can could be seen and lots and lots of young people.  This was fun.  We were running well, I had happily scooted down the downhill section of the route.  My new shoes (Mizuno) were doing nicely.  Running in Atlanta was pretty good.

Then came the hills – the upward part of hill running (see previous post for my hill shocker).  The first thing I need to remind you all is that I live in Bangkok Thailand and Bangkok Thailand is flat.  Flat as in the Netherlands flat, delta flat.  Any advantage I might have had training in high heat and humidity was cancelled out by my ineffectual leg muscles not being able to get me up the next set of elevations in any graceful way.  I spent the next 10 minutes huffing and puffing my way up gradual gradients - all the time replaying Mr Lapin's mantra on hills 'you've gotta bomb 'em babe' in my head.

Fast forward to last Saturday and a trip to the gym to get a run in mid-afternoon. Remembering the challenge of the Atlanta hills I thought the time was right to start integrating hill training into my routine and the best way was to use the hamster wheel hill programme.  I managed 2.5k at a gradient of between 4-6.  My legs hated me all the way but my heart was smiling for the rest of the day.  This is going to be a great addition to my training programme.  I am determined to learn to love hills!

Yet again, my training has been sketchy.  I have had some crazy jetlag to recover from and other unexpected events have meant my evening runs in the park have been few and far between.  I am looking again at my work load and evening obligations hoping to rearrange things to enable me to get back to a regular routine.

The good news is that I have found two more 10k races in Bangkok this May and June and I will focus on these for my next training goal.  I want to run at least one of them under 60 minutes.  The coming hot season is not something I am looking forward to so if anyone has tips for coping with 35C+ and 60% humidity please let me know?

No running stats this post and no running blog recommendation - I have been a bit slack...