The Hills Are Alive [W-W-W-Wilke hill repeats]

Today was the dreaded (for me) Wilke hill repeats. I've just got some mental hangups about this one, and I try every time to get rid of those phobias. We all met at RunTex for the long warmup to Wilke, just over 2.6 miles, under overcast skies and a muggy 65 degrees. Our little group of Jennifer, Brian, Rich and myself came in last to Wilke, after we strolled the warmup at just under 10:00/mile pace. We were all a little tired still, and some of the guys were quite a bit stiff after their run on Saturday. Right when we got there, we jumped in with the other folks for drills. It amused me to see that lately we're going shorter and shorter on the drills. Gilbert gathered us up after that, and gave us the details for today. He told us that 10 x Wilke was what all the marathoners should do, then 2 backwards Wilkes and finally 3 uphill striders at the top of Wilke. Since I've done so miserably at this workout historically, I wanted to do at least 7 Wilkes. I was a total failure the last time at Wilke back in August, when I felt awful and only did 3 x Wilke. Today?

I got through the first 4 or 5 repeats relatively comfortably. Relative to what, I don't know, but I wasn't making my usual awful sounds at the top of each repeat. Gasping for breath at the end, yes, but none of the usual wimpering or barking. The course was wet at the bottom, which made for some chancy footing until we got about 1/3 of the way up, but that really didn't cause any real problems. When I got to 7 repeats, I was pretty close to being finished, but I made myself do one more repeat for my mental health. At the end of number 8, I was really grabbing for air, and decided that was enough for me. The two backwards Wilkes were amazingly tough, and my quads were just screaming at me towards the end of each repeat. After those, the three short uphill striders at the top of the hill felt almost feather-light. Weird, that.

Anyway, I survived the encounter with Wilke, and we bunched back up after a few cups of water for the cooldown run home. I ran back with my same tribe as started the day, and we covered the distance again right under 10:00/mile pace. The long cooldown run always feels great after the stresses of Wilke.

For the day, 8.6 miles. I didn't time the actual Wilke repeats today, but I did leave the GPS watch running while we were doing them, and it was a really funny ball of dots for the portion of the workout spent running up and down the hill. I stuck around and did some stretching today with Aaron and Alex, and the day was done. I'm glad I'm done with Wilke until after Freescale, but I'm also glad I mostly conquered my Wilkephobia today. The 20 x 400m on Wednesday will be fun after this. :-)