Hills, Lakes, and Heat

Last Wednesday our running group was to do hill training. We left Hopkins HS a bit behind schedule and jogged to Chevy Hill. After the second time up and back on the hill, our instructors had us head back to the high school. This is when I realized that Kelly and I were officially brain washed. Both of us were disappointed we only ran the hill twice and we were expecting more of a work out. Who in their normal state of mind thinks in this manner? Clearly they are spiking the Gatorade at our class.

After we returned to the high school, we were met by Johnny J, personal trainer (say that in your best radio voice). We took us through a series of stretches and active warm-ups included lunges and body squats. He also had us roll on the side of our legs on this Styrofoam roll to work out our I.T. band, which is apparently crucial to do for serious runners (not sure if we are at that stage yet, but damn close). This exercise almost brought tears of pain, not kidding. Doesn't he realize we are running a marathon and not training for the Olympic gold? Needless to say, our legs were still sore Saturday morning before our long training run of the week. You can guess how much training we put in on Thursday and Friday...

The run on Saturday was a 10-miler around the metro lakes. We started on the west side of Lake Calhoun, went around Lake of the Ilses, down the east side of Calhoun, around Lake Harriet and finished up again on the west side of Calhoun. We started running at 7 AM and it was 60 degrees. Just awesome for husky guy. We tried lemon flavored GU again at mile 5 and it didn't stay down as well as it did last weekend. I tasted for a few miles after I inhaled it. Cannot say enough about running in numbers, although there were only a handful of us there on Saturday, it is much easier to run when there are others in it with you.

Stuff I learned this week.

1. Don't stretch before you run. Run first, stop and stretch. I guess you aren't supposed to stretch cold muscles. Makes sense.
2. We have an IT band that connects from your knee to your hip. It hurts like an m-effer to roll on it and loosen it up.
3. I still hate squats. Always have, always will.
4. Moving heavy furniture after a 10 mile run isn't that cool.
5. Golfing after a 10 mile run and moving heavy furniture is still pretty fun.