Thanks for your reply, Anne. I've been taking walk breaks on hills, but I always feel like I didn't REALLY run the whole distance if I took walk breaks. I guess I need to get out of that thinking and just accept that sometimes I'll have to walk. I think I'm probably a bit too hard on myself these days!

Lisa, I used to feel that way too, but the reality is that everybody walks. Stopping to take in some water, stretch, look at the scenery, avoid a big dog (or wait on a javelina in my case), wait for running partners, stoplights, and yes, to catch your breath. Maybe not during a particularly critcal training run or a goal race, but everybody walks. Often. It just means you are doing it right.

If you are pushing for longer distances, then you'll want to push the walking a bit, but if you need it, take it. You'll get stronger, faster. And I don't know about you, but when I started at 276 pounds I couldn't walk around the block. Sometimes it helps to keep some perspective on that. Don't be hard on yourself for needing a break.

Anne

I agree with Anne, don't be so hard on yourself. We all have good and poopy runs... When I get to a hill I don't look up to see how far I need to get up there... I look down in front of me and repeat : "What hill? What hill? What hill? There is no hill...." or "Baby steps, baby steps, keep going, keep going..." next thing I know the hill is gone and I'm on flat surface again...

Hills, I am so glad you brought them up. I just found a way to conquer the uphill parts. At the bottom I start singing a long song to myself and I am not allowed to complain until I am done with the song... of course I do go very slow. Singing to myself cuts down on the negative self talk.

But I have just the opposite question.

I have this massively steep hill which is really bothering me on the way down. Sure I can go fast alright but I am worried that I am going to hurt myself. Such a hard impact. Any ideas on dealing with steep downhill stretches?

Because I've run most of the hills round here now, I just remind myself that I can do it, focus on the next few paces rather than the whole hill, and slow down if I need to. I've heard that if you're targetting a point to run to, you should pick a point past the brow of the hill then by the time you get there your legs won't be feeling too bad and you'll be more likely to carry on.

I do try to run all my hills now because I feel like I've done the run/walk thing for long enough and I want to run my next marathon without walk breaks (in my dreams!) so I'm focussing on keeping going however slow, but until fairly recently I did take walk breaks, particularly on hills. Sometimes in a race I look at all the people struggling to run past me up a hill, smug in the knowledge that if I walk up it I'll then have more energy to overtake them on the way back down, and I won't lose that much time getting up it as long as I do start running again as soon as I can.

For downhill, the advice I got was to approach it like a child, let your legs go and go "weeeeeeeee" all the way down. However, that might not be the best way of avoiding injury...

Seriously, it has seemed easier since I let myself go faster on downhills. I used to be really scared of falling if I did them too fast, now I just let myself go and I haven't come to any harm yet.

I always go slow downhill, the steeper the slower, its hard on the knees. dh runs up the steep hills and walks down them. Make sure you bend your knees more when you go down.

Well...its been most of the month but I ran 3 days last week and once this week without tape.

I am tentatively back at about 50%- oh and since it seems to be the topic..I am banned from hills for awhile.

When we run downhill my running coach tells us to relax and to just kinda fall down the hill and go with it... she tells us to put our arms on our sides, relax our shoulders, our faces and let our whole bodies go down the hill... We don't do this all the time but it seems to help us relax when going down certain hills... We did it tonight this is what reminded me of this game we play when we go down a hill...

7k tonight it was awesome, prefect weather 1C, sunny and gorgeous!! YAY Spring is coming

3.5 today, but tough because I am practicing a new running form. Apparently since pregnancies I am now a pronator. I used to be a suppinator. My arches fell during the first pregnancy.

Focusing on pulling up and open at the top of the hip bone, I can see where having no abs yet is contributing to the problem.

Ah yes, I just finished a 4-week session of hill training (I don't hate it since I know it works.... but I am not the biggest fan of them). My next session will be in April.

Anyway there is absolutely nothing wrong with starting off walking up hills. Maybe after a while do 1 min of running, 1 min of walking up the hill and then increase the mins of running (depending on the length of the hill). If you don't ever want to run hills that's okay too. The important thing is that you're out there!!

I will be doing my next 10K in 2.5 weeks (The St. Patty's Day run in Ottawa)! I am really looking forward to it. I don't care about the temperature, I just hope it isn't raining or snowing and the wind isn't too bad!

Cheers!

Ali

Hi you guys.

Thanks for all the downhill advice. I made a big leap in running today. Today is the first time in my whole life that I have ever run 2 miles in a row without stopping. I wasn't planning to do this but I did and I feel just great.

I have a country road which is about a half mile long and this is how I measure distance. I had planned to run a mile take a break and run another mile. However today my neighbors dogs were out.

So I cut it a hair short so that the whole thing was just under a mile but I really wanted to do a mile so I trudged back up the road (one way is significantly more uphill than the other) then when I was up I figured I'd go back down and by that time I was so darned close to two miles that I figured I'd just go for it.

Running in the snow is absolutely awesome. I had visions of moving to Alaska. The best past of todays run was that I was out on completely fresh snow. It was beautiful no ugly tire tracks from cars.

Well done on two miles! That's a great milestone.

I had a half decent 7.4 mile run tonight. My stomach was playing up all the way round, but my pace was actually pretty much spot on so it didn't seem to affect me too much.

As I was going downhill I was trying to work out how I run it. I think I lengthen my stride slightly, using gravity to pull me that bit further between steps. I guess it reduces the impact a bit if you hit the ground less often

I ran 4 miles tonight with a group of three other women. We all ended up taking a few walk breaks. I was seriously tired and stressed out from the very rough week I'm having at school (could my students be more awful lately? probably not...)

I think I'm figuring something out about my running lately. A pattern or something. My first mile and a half or so is always hard, because I'm adjusting, and then in mile three I feel GOOD. After that, though, forget it. I'm SPENT! So if I quit after 3 miles, I feel great, but if I keep going I end up feeling like crap. I guess it's going to take me a while to adjust to a longer distance. Or maybe I'm just a 3-mile kind of girl!

It is good to see so many people posting!

I attempted a 2 miler tonight, nice and easy. I suppose I should finish my antibiotics first, because I just about passed out when I got back home. I'll be resting for a few more days.

Anne

WAAAAAH I am sick again. No gym today. I need to get back on track soon, I already registered for the hal-mary and talked a new runner into it.