Below Zero Outside; Long Hill Repeats on the Treadmill Inside

As I've mentioned here before, I'm training for a race that looks like this:



Mastodon Challenge 15K

 

And so I'm trying not to miss any of the hill workouts on my training plan.  Here is what the plan said for Wednesday morning:

 

Long Hill Repeats, 8-10 Reps

 

Not having done Long Hill Repeats before, I looked it up in YOU (Only Faster) and read: 

Long hills are performed on a gradual slope and last around two to three minutes.  You run at a medium-hard effort . . . .  At the top, you turn around and jog slowly back down to the bottom of the hill before beginning again.  Most runners find that four to eight repetitions are optimal for a long hill workout.

Easy enough to set up on my Interval Timer app:

Did I mention that it was below zero degrees F outside on Wednesday morning?  So my hills would be at the gym, on the treadmill, which meant I had to decide on an incline and a speed. Time to consult my handy-dandy treadmill pace conversion chart.  At 0% incline, I usually use 5.3 mph for my "jog" or "easy run" speed, which equates to about an 11:45 - 11:50 pace.  To keep it simple, I decided to leave the speed setting constant and change the incline only.  Looking at the chart again, a 3% incline at 5.3 mph would equate to about a 10-minute mile which seemed right for me for "medium-hard."

There were more people at the gym on Wednesday morning than usual for 6 a.m.:

Would all those people on treadmills usually be running outside in the dark?

I thought I would hate this workout and wasn't even sure I would finish all the hill intervals.  They were challenging and I was working beyond medium-hard for the third minute of each one, but the 58 minutes passed quickly and I felt exercised but good when I was done.  Definitely a keeper for some of the times that the "dread-mill" can't be avoided!

Then I went home and treated myself to a delicious, thick and creamy Vanilla Nut Smoothie!