Tough Week

This week I did "speed" work, hills, and my long run, all in a three day span. Thursday I was on the treadmill at the gym and did 3 x 1 miles @ 6.0 mph and ran a total of 45 minutes. Friday was the long loop around my neighborhood. It's about 2 miles and has one monster hill that Mr Garmin says its a 150 foot climb in a half mile. According to my calculator that is about a 5.5% grade. Today I did my long run using running and walking. I need to work on this. I tended to run too fast after my walk breaks, and the first five miles were actually faster than my marathon pace even with walking a minute every fifteen minutes. The first 1 1/2 hours were fine, but I struggled the last hour. (could be that the speed and hill workouts the previous two days factored into the struggling) Anyways, I covered 12.75 miles in 2 1/2 hours. Total mileage for the week was 34.7.

Here is a picture of the second half of the monster hill. The first half is curved, then it levels off for about 20 yards, then its uphill again.