6x Lunchbreak Hill

A few of us had 18 miles on the agenda for our Saturday morning run and I had a couple ideas for how to get there:

Option 1 - 1.5 mile warm-up, 10x Lunchbreak Hill, 1.5 mile cooldown
Option 2 - 9 mile loop, 6x Lunchbreak Hill

Option 1 seemed a little too ambitious and not a lot of fun, so Jeremy, Zak and I agreed on Option 2. We had done 4 repeats on Lunchbreak Hill a few weeks ago so 6 seemed like the obvious next step. The rest of the group, consisting of Jim, Jamie, Blaine, Mindy, Val, NJ Dave and Jordan, were all up for heading out on the Bradbury-Pineland Corridor on the loop I described. I had heard, courtesy of Xar, about a new bridge recently built over Thoits Brook between Bradbury and Tryon and I was anxious to check it out.

Photo of the new bridge by Val

With all the rain we received overnight I was expecting the trails to be a slushy mess, but it got just cold enough long enough for a few inches of snow to fall and there was a nice, tacky coating that actually left the trails in great shape. I ended up getting caught up with Jamie's pace which was pretty quick, always a risk when someone else is planning to run less than you are, but I felt good and was having fun so I just went with it.

By the time we reached the bottom of Lunchbreak Hill our group was reduced to Zak, Jeremy, Jamie and Blaine and we paused for a moment before heading up while Zak and I stashed our hydration packs. It felt great to lighten the load and we moved up the 3/4 mile hill pretty quick. Once at the summit of Bradbury Jamie and Blaine headed down to the parking lot to finish their run while Zak and Jeremy joined me for 5 more trips up and down the hill. When we got back down to the bottom of the hill Mindy and Val were waiting there for us to get some video footage of Trail Monsters in action, they planned to do two laps of the 9 mile loop and somehow managed to bring it up to a total of 20 miles.

For some reason the second time up was pretty slow for me, I guess just running conservative, but on the next time up I really pushed the pace. This coincided with a peak in the quality of the trail conditions, things were getting nicely packed and the footing was great. But then on the way back down it had warmed up just enough, and combined with all the foot traffic the trail conditions were quickly deteriorating into a very wet, slushy mess. The next three reps each got a bit slower, but I can't blame the conditions entirely, this is a big ass hill to be running up and down over and over again and I was feeling it. I felt good overall, but each time I headed back up it got a little bit harder.

Splits:

1 - UP: 10:09, DOWN: 8:08
2 - UP: 10:32, DOWN: 7:56
3 - UP: 9:39, DOWN: 7:25
4 - UP: 10:14, DOWN: 7:32
5 - UP: 10:21, DOWN: 7:23
6 - UP: 10:34


I do plan to work up to 10 repeats of Lunchbreak Hill, but all in good time. I'm thinking 8x on March 17, and 10x on April 14. Got to keep these crazy hill workouts well spaced out.

Brought home a stick in my shoe, I had it stuck in there for the last 3 miles

time: 3:09:14
distance: 18.17 miles
pace: 10:25

conditions: 1-2" of fresh sticky snow turning to slush
weather: mid 30's, sunny, windy

gear: Inov-8 Oroc 280, sock liners, wool socks, short tights, long sleeve shirt, gloves, buff, Nathan HPL #020