First and foremost, a huge congrats and good luck to Dr. Lawrence and his family who will be running in a 5k race this weekend. He is taking part in a great program to get young girls out and training to build confidence and fitness. An awesome group and goal! Good luck!

Secondly, treadmills got a bit more fun for me yesterday. Since getting back on the training wagon, our thursday runs are designated speed days. This means we are either outside running fartleks and hills, or on the treadmill doing the same. Yesterday Ellie and I opted to head to the gym and hit up some treadmill work. I don't think we are quite adjusted to the cold temperatures yet, so the idea of running outside was a no go.

I set up my treadmill to do interval hill sessions. Every two minutes it would pitch up to a 4% incline and drop my pace down a mile per hour. It was very do-able, but I really liked that it forced me to vary it up automatically. It startled me the first few times when my pace would shoot back up for the flats, or when all of a sudden I would feel like I'm falling off the back. Honestly, it made the boring-ness of the treadmill that I despise so much not quite as boring.

There is no way in hell that she would be smiling at that incline.

Intervals and hills are not something I've ever really worked on very much. I understand their value and amazing benefits, but it just has never been something I really wanted to do. I guess one benefit of not having a long race looming in the distance, is that I am more willing to try different training techniques without fear of goofing my schedule up. In a way I am looking forward to really working on my tempo and hill routines, and I am really interested to see how my performance improves.

Who'da thought just adding a degree of difficulty to the treadmill would make it more interesting. Have a great week, and good luck to all of the racers this weekend! There isn't too many more race weekends left in the north-east, so sign up for some last minute runs!