Hill Practice and my new Shoes

After our 2 weekend races it was nice to have an active rest day on Monday. I went to the pool after work and did a mixed set of 5x300m. I made the mistake of using fins early so when I just wanted to do freestyle to finish my form was crap.

Tuesday morning saw Gnome and I head out for a 12k run with rolling hills. There are plenty of hills around here and today we decided to include the longest. Coonara Rd hill is 1.5k long and goes from down in the valley to the ridge along Castle Hill Rd. It's also steep like Shores Hill (Balmain) near the top. To simulate both Lane Cove Striders course and C2S we aimed to hit the bottom of it about the 4.5k mark. I found the last 15m tough but got there. I walked for 10m then we started again. Gnome accused me of picking the pace up a k or so later but it felt comfortable. We managed the second half 5 minutes faster but I don't think there were quite as many hills in it.

Today was a rest or weights day for me. I had to stay home today waiting for a tradesman and a nice surprise was to receive the shoes I'd won in the R4YL draw. I'd won a Reebok pair but couldn't find a local store that stocked them so after reading different shoe reviews I chose the Premier Road Lite and as a bonus they came in Swannies colours. I knew I shouldn't run so I decided to compromise and take North for a decent walk and do an abs session when we got back. Even managed to convince Angel to get her head out of a book and come for the walk. Mind you after already accusing me of going the long way she then queried which way home. She got a choice of 2k on the flat or 1 k including a hill. Apparently the lure of Oprah was too strong so we took the hill. As for the shoes it'll be interesting to see what they feel like to run in. Might be hard to beat my kayanos.

TA