Does hill training actually work?

It was so nice to take it easy this weekend. Well, I mean, stay in town. Because Saturday's run was NOT EASY.

See, normally we do our long runs on the Towpath. The point of long runs is to complete them, right? Well, now that we've been running for a while, I think it's time to push a little more. I've had some shitty long runs this year, and I've had some okay ones. Saturday's run was hard - and slow - but it seemed like I was accomplishing something.

I started out with 9 on the Towpath and finished with 4 on the hill. THE HILL. It's a long uphill for nearly 2 miles. (Then you get to finish with a downhill so that's fun.) My pace dropped big time. In fact, I walked some. Then on the downhill, I felt like I was flying. When my watch beeped at the mile, I was shocked to see an 11+ pace. Kind of funny.

We've been running this hill for the past couple of weeks. So I think I've done it four times now? And only once - last Wednesday - did I run up the entire thing.

But I think it's already paying off. On last night's 4-miler from the house to the park on the trails there, I felt a lot stronger on the hills. I didn't walk (although I had an 11:55 mile in the park). It was good.

Next thing you know, I'll be doing hill repeats!