First hill training session

Today started off with a nice gentle 5k row.  Then at lunchtime I did an hour of yoga which felt pretty good, as I managed to hold all the poses for the amount of time that the teacher wanted for the very first time.  After that I had my weekly massage.  This time we focussed more on my legs than on my back and did a lot of stretching on my left leg as some of the muscles in that leg are extremely tight.

After I got back from work and had some food I was feeling a little tired, but then Negrita seemed like she wanted to go outside for a walk.  So I decided to put on my running kit and use the hands free running lead.

All my runs till now have been steady runs, so I decided to do my first hill training session to increase my speed and endurance.  I tend to be pretty spontaneous in terms of my routes and decided once out of the house that I would run down to the lake and then do some interval training up the hill that goes to the Dolder.  On the way down to the lake Negrita decided to go the opposite way to me when passing a young lady and we ended up almost taking her out with the lead.   I don't know why but quite a few people tend to smile when they see Negrita running happily alongside me.  I think it is because she is so small but let me tell you she can run fast and keep going for quite a long time.  I am not sure she would last 2.5 hours but she managed the 1 hour today without at any moment pausing to rest.

We did some intervals as we climbed up the hill and although my back was aching slightly I felt pretty strong.  After reaching the Dolder ice rink we turned round and came straight back down the hill to the lake.  I was very conscious whilst running downhill to take shorter steps to lessen the impact on my joints.  It was during a fast downhill in the Frauenfelder half that I injured my knee last time.  This time though I found that by bending my knees the impact seemed to be absorbed much more in the quadriceps than the knees.

We then made our way along the lake and back towards home, with a short off-lead time for Negrita in the park near our house.  

Now it is time for sleeeeeeeep.