I had always heard of them, but never did them.  Now it was time to put on my big girl panties and start to do some “real running workouts”.  I thought when you run, you just run.  But I am learning that each run has a purpose.  My purpose was to always get out there and get moving and have my time to myself.  That’s all well and good, but if I want to improve my time or to improve my body, I have to do some other workouts as well.  Cadence drills and hill repeats are on the plan for this week.  I didn’t do the cadence drills yet, but I did do the hill repeats.

I didn’t hate them, I kind of liked them.  But it took forever to fill 30 minutes of time with running up a hill and then walking down and then running back up that hill, then walk down again.  Repeat until 30 minutes is up.  The purpose of this is to strengthen other muscles that you don’t use as much when running on flat surfaces.  I did feel it in my glutes and hip flexors and that is a good thing because those are areas that are very weak for me.  I saw an article in Runners World recently and I have to go back to it and read it. Weak glutes and hips are a major cause for injuries which is something I have had to deal with in the past year.

So to help combat those issues, hill repeats are now going to be part of my running workout regime.  It is also convenient because I can do it while my kids ride their bikes in the driveway and cheer me on as I run up and down the hill about 20 times!