Mount St in winter

One of my favorite loops runs up Mount St. This is what it looked like Sunday morning with snow on the ground.

Another Mount St photo in warmer weather can be found here 

Arnold St hill - take it one step at a time

I had a good long in the cold this morning. I chose to do the good hill route out Summer St, up Arnold and then down Upper Union. A little over seven miles, it was a real good workout for me.

Arnold St hill - take it one step at a time, originally uploaded by shersteve.

I did stop to take a couple of photos but otherwise kept a good steady pace.

How was your run today?

Mount St lesson

no matter how steep the hill you still take it a step at a time, originally uploaded by shersteve.

No matter how steep the hill you still take it a step at a time. This is especially true for Mount Street. It has a sharp slope. Fortunately, it is less than a half-mile long.

It demands attention.

Pick 'em up, pick 'em up!
One step at a time and soon you can hear the peacocks crowing as the take the slight bend to the right.

Soon, you'll turn right on Upper Union and just a little more of an up slope until you crest by the water tank.

Then it is a good ways down. Let the gravity do all the work. Your legs can stretch out and hug along the soft sand to help cushion the down steps.

A good work out!

5 miles today

I had a good run today. Weather was a little warmer, into the 30's F. Overcast, with a little fog as the melting snow tried to rise. Went out on the hilly King-Summer-Mount-Upper Union-King loop I like.

This is a good course to run particularly on the comeback route. There are three hills. The first one, a good half to 3/4 mile long incline with almost a one mile downhill to follow. The second hill is shorter (about half mile) but steeper and followed by another approximately one mile decline. The third hill is both shorter and more of a slope which leads to a flat stretch for the finish.

Why are hills good for the comeback route?
The hill provide resistance so you are working harder for the distance. The best part of running the route in this direction is the combination of the downhills after the inclines. Especially during the comeback, you can let gravity do the work on the downhills. Simply concentrating on form, getting a good stride and rhythm, letting the hill do the work, stretch your legs out and down you go.

I'll expand upon this idea in a future podcast. One of the good things about the run was that I came up with three podcast topics: (1) hills, (2) curse of the splots, and (3) the practicality of glittens.

4 on the hills

It was supposed to be 50 F Thursday but didn't quite get there. The temp was dropping by the time we got out on the hills that night at Tri-County Regional Vocational in Franklin.

2 of us arrived together, both arriving late, I caught a later train than I should have (and it ran late to compound the matter), the other was slowed on the drive home due to a brush fire along the center media coming south bound on RT 495.

None the less, it was time to run. Late or not, we got started with the warm up loop. A one mile route down and around the hill through the neighborhood. We were just getting started on our first, when we saw 2 other Pacers running towards us. They had run over from the Horace Mann Middle school as their warm up. So 4 of us did the workout.

I only did a portion to target finishing the night with 4 miles. As you may recall, the full workout would be 5 miles. It was a chilly breeze but the workout went well.

It was good to have company to run the hills in daylight, at least to start. Hills are good for you.

May the roads/trails be kind to you!