Tuesday nights are hill repeats with my running store race team. I got changed before leaving the office as usual. Rain was in the forecast, but it was dry and overcast as I left the office.

But the drops started falling on my 20-mile commute. By the time I made it home, it was really coming down. With wind gusts and a chilly 44 degrees, I just wasn’t feeling it. I was going to attempt to run my scheduled eight hills on the treadmill.

Phew. That was tough!

I didn’t do the math to figure out what I should be doing since the treadmill is so different.  After a slow warm-up mile, I cranked the incline as high as it’d go (my low-end treadmill doesn’t give me an incline percentage), and set the speed to 7.0 mph, around an 8:30 pace. (the treadmill only gives me mph, too).

This is slower than my splits have been lately. I should be a little over an 8-minute pace, but I’ve been hitting them around 7:45. Still, I figured it was a good starting point. Since we’re doing 200-meter hill repeats, I decided I’d run .13 uphill, with .12 recovery.

That first uphill was really hard!  Also, it was way too fast, about 52 seconds. I have no idea how that is possible. Maybe I messed up the timer?

I decided to make the remaining seven hills a little easier. I still kept the incline up at or close to the top (it’s hard to tell), but dropped the speed down to 6.5, which should be a little over a 9-minute pace. It sure felt faster on that incline!

I unfortunately have no idea what the rest of my splits are. I was trying out a lap timer on my phone, and it wasn’t really working for me. When I restarted for the second hill it didn’t start a new lap, and then my phone kept going to sleep. Next time (oh, I hope there will NOT be a next time), I’ll just use my Garmin for the time!

For the last hill, I kicked it up to 6.8. But I had to drop it down to 6.6 halfway through. It wasn’t just that the speed was tough on my tired legs. With the incline, I felt a little like I might go flying off the treadmill!

How did I ever make it through that first one?

I finished my hills, and ran a cool-down mile with no incline. That was all I had in me tonight, for a total of four miles.

What a workout!