Damn hills

I'm just going to come out and say it. I hate hills. The thought of running 7 miles uphill does not sound at all appealing to me. When I run, I usually use the hills as an opportunity for a walking break, but since I've been training for WB I have made myself run up any hills I encounter. It pretty much sucks, but hopefully I'll be better prepared for whatever craziness WB has in store for me.

I've found a few hill workouts online. Hopefully you'll find them useful, I've found them to suck (in a good way).

Here's a treadmill workout for all you gym rats:

Warm up with 10 minutes easy running, then at a speed slightly slower than your tempo pace do the following:

3% grade for 90 seconds with 3 min recovery (2X)
5% grade for 60 seconds with 2 min recovery (2X)
7% grade for 30 seconds with a 60 second recovery (2X)

Cool down with another 10 minutes easy running.

If you prefer the great outdoors, try this:

Choose a hill that will take 30 seconds or so to get to the top. It helps to be able to run through the finish, so running a really long hill and timing yourself, I think, is a little less effective. You choose the number of intervals based on your training/fitness level. I managed four at this point. Run as fast as you can up the hill, through the finish and then walk down the hill and do it again. As you get better, run more and longer hills.

I've done both and they're both hard, but they can only get easier, right?! Please tell me I'm right!!

Oh, and check this out...at the exact moment I was running in a torrential downpour complete with thunder and lightning this weekend, two tornados were touching down about 20 miles away from me. Coolest/scariest run ever. My shoes are STILL soaked.

How's YOUR training coming??