Last Week's Torturous Tuesday

Last week's hill workout in Walnut Creek at Shell Ridge Open Space was brutal! I didn't think it would be too bad because I'm in better condition at this point in the season than I was last spring. Ha!

Our warm-up was just over a mile long -- uphill! Then our hill workout was straight uphill (seriously) for 2/10 of a mile, followed by about a mile of downhill recovery; we repeated it twice. The 2/10 of a mile is what nearly got the best of me. A short distance to be sure, but the incline was unbelievable. I went out way too fast. By the time I slowed near the top of the hill, my throat was burning. It really felt like it was on fire or, at the very least, like someone had rubbed it with sandpaper. I was coughing like I had bronchitis and wheezing like I had asthma.

Even after recovering (mandatory before the next downhill leg), I couldn't "right' myself. You see, when I cough, it makes me sneeze. At the very least, I get a runny nose. So I started sniffing in the absence of Kleenex, which made me cough even harder. It was a vicious cycle. Then I tried running downhill, but I had drank a lot of water already and when I coughed hard, it make it hard to hold my bladder! Let's just say I was pretty much a disaster.

I got back around to the bottom of the hill for the second go-around and Coach Haakon said, "Don't go up until you've caught your breath!" It wasn't my breath I was trying to catch! Jeez oh peas. I did the second loop much more slowly.

I ended up buying cough drops on the way home from the run. Sadly, they didn't help! I even still had a scratchy throat the next day -- small price to pay, I guess. It was a small miracle that my legs and glutes felt all right. I'm just glad tomorrow's workout is at the track and not in the hills.
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