Hill Training - Mixing Easy with Hard

Location: The Wrekin
Date: 5th May

Route: through Ercall Wood, up the Wrekin, down the back, round the side and back through Ercall Wood.

Intensity: various - sprints mixed with easy pace.

Time: 90 minutes
Post Workout Nutrition: this, an hour later.

We wanted to spice a long training run up with a few short, hard sections, to build up some fitness at the same time. Probably shouldn't do this too often, as it was almost as hard as a race in the end. We followed a similar route to the Wrekin Fell Race earlier in the year.

This was how we looked after the first 40-second burst at 75% effort. I am standing at the top of the hill we came up.

The hill we'd just run up is behind me

At the top, I used the timer on my camera to take a photo of Lightning and me. It was taking me a while to get the timer working, and his impatience was inadvertently captured by one of the photos I accidentally took:

"Will you stop dicking around?"

Then, suddenly, Mr Niceguy...

This was a photo of The Ercall from the side of the Wrekin. Nice bluebells in the foreground, although the camera has not done justice to them.

Later, we did more of an 85% sprint over 30 seconds, then, just before the end, a power walk up the steep side of The Ercall. Lightning was flagging at this point. He's a week or two behind me in the fitness drive, but I expect he'll catch up.