There are many reasons why we run the hills of Selden. Many do so for the challenge, some for the opportunity to meet other runners to train with and some to continue their journey to fitness. But for most it is to get stronger and faster when competing in events such as road and trail racing as well as triathlons. Many have praised their hill training for exactly those reasons. They have trimmed minutes off their mile pace time and can run longer and harder on legs trained for the pounding they endure during hours on the roads in marathon and triathlete events like the half and full Ironman.
I thought it was time to show exactly how quickly a runner can improve by running our hills regularly. So a new feature will unfold beginning in May. It will show empirically how much faster and exactly how quickly.
For the next 8 months…May through December…let’s all follow the journey of Katy Rice Forman. Katy has agreed to be our “laboratory experiment”. She is a perfect candidate as she has done the hills several times and is an experienced runner but has just started doing them again a few months ago after a long hill layoff due to the birth of her son, Lucas, in March 2014. She mentioned to me she really wanted to ramp up her training and loved our group and the support and motivation we provide getting through this tough course regularly.
She agreed to having her hill workouts and her race events put under our microscope to show in real numbers how hill training makes you a faster runner. Beginning with her first hills run in May she will post her times and provide some brief comments on her run, such as her perceived effort that day, the weather conditions if they played a factor either negatively or positively, etc. At the end of each month Katy will summarize all her hills runs and races at a quick glance in a chart so we can all track her progress. We all have good and bad days on the hills so an average pace for the month will be provided. We will see how that average drops from month to month! She will let us know when she runs a race and we can compare her 5K, 10K and half marathon times as the year unfolds.
If you would like to do the same on your own please do so! It will not take long and at the end of the year we can post not only how much faster Katy has become by running a weekly hill run but you all can add your success stories as well.
So our little science experiment needs a name. Let’s call this journey KATY’S KINETIC KORNER. She will introduce herself in short order.
Let the fun begin!!
Def: kinetic- relating to the motion of material bodies and the forces and energy associated therewith.
ie: active; lively.