Hills and Chills

The Hyannis Half Marathon is fast approaching, and today I realized that I haven't done any hill training yet. I'm also not 100% happy with my training because so far its been completely indoors, which I've never done. With all the snow and ice its been impossible to do any sort of running outside, so I've been stuck with the treadmills at the gym. On my lunch break today I went to the gym to get a hill training in.

The Workout

-Warm-up: Run 3/4 mile at easy pace (6.0 mph)
-8 Hill Intervals - 2 minutes each (6.5 mph pace and 5.5 incline) followed by 2 minutes at same pace and 0 incline
-Cool-down: Run 3/4 mile at easy pace (6.0 mph)

This is all I could fit in before I booked it home for a 2pm conference call. On my last hill interval I increased the pace and incline and by the end of the 2 minutes I felt a little pukey.  Normally that's not a good thing, but its good to experience that and train through it so you're prepared on race day. The more you can work through in training, the better off you'll be when you hit the course.

No strength training today - I put my time in by shoveling instead!

For a quick lunch I had a pita pizza - this was fast and easy and really satisfying. I also had 1/2 banana, 1/2 a baked sweet potato and a piece of chocolate (I like to tell myself that sugar is important for muscle recovery).

All you need to make the pita pizza is a pita, a few spoonfuls of marinara sauce, and some shredded cheese.  All of my ingredients were from Trader Joe's - I used a whole wheat organic pita, marinara sauce,  light mozzarella cheese, and some torn up fresh basil.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toast the pita for a few minutes (so it gets crisp enough), then assemble toppings. Put pita pizza on tin foil and bake for 5 minutes, until cheese is melted. Enjoy!

Pat has been in bed all day. Literally. I've woken him up a couple times to take some medicine and drink some Gatorade, but otherwise he's been sleeping. He is all stuffed up and has the chills. I just got him up so he can eat some soup and be awake for a few hours before going back to sleep again. I was supposed to have dinner with Steph tonight, but the roads are horrible, so instead I'm going to stay home and take care of Pat and make some cookies, and try to avoid getting sick myself. Don't worry - there will be ample hand washing involved between my nurse duties and my baking!