Today's Run ~ 7 Miles Hills

I had such a good run this morning.  I think I picked every hard hill in the neighborhood and ran it!  We have so many hills that it's easy to plan a hilly route.  We have three extremely tough hills that Les and I call "walls" due to their steepness.  I ran up two of them and down the third this morning. 

My personal pace goal for hills is under 12 minutes a mile. Today, my average was 11:18.  This was faster than last week's run on the trail.  I'm not sure it was entirely due to the terrain, either.  Last week I ran 2.5 miles up, then 2.5 down.  Today I had a lot of up and down throughout the entire run.

Mile 2 was my slowest mile.  But look at the steepness!  First I ran up the Flanagan wall, which is about a quarter of a mile with over a 10% grade. Then towards the end of that mile I hit a paved utility road that we have nick named "Water Tower Wall" because it goes up to a water tank.  This has an average of 11.9% grade with some sections of over 20%.  My heart rate maxed out at 166 BPM on that part.

7.05 miles in 1:19:35, 11:18 pace.

Ave HR 148
Max HR 166
Calories burned 698

P.S.  I have lost interest in the Photo A Day challenge, so won't be continuing with it.  I really enjoyed it for my other blog, but not so much for this one.  I want to get back to blogging about running, not worrying about taking a picture that makes sense for the day.