Bloodthirsty FAST members are plotting your demise!

So we had some hills last night at FAST. And by "some hills", I mean monstrous towering beasts that rival the Hill Of Death in ferocity and evilness.

My alert readers will have already noted that we don't typically do hill work on Tuesdays. Indeed, that joy is generally reserved for Thursdays. So imagine our surprise when Coach Brad pointed toward the mausoleum (which sits atop a very tall hill) and told us we would be running that way.

Wait. What?

The coaches had mapped out a sort of figure-eight-shaped loop, which included the long hill up to the mausoleum, and instructed us to do an interval workout on said loop for about 30-40 minutes. For some people, the workout was 7 minutes hard, 3 minutes easy, repeat. For others, the workout was 3 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy, repeat. For me and a few others, the workout was a combination of the two variations. I did some 3-2 intervals and some 7-3 intervals. And I tackled the crazy hill, which shall henceforth be known as the Hill Of Doom (evil younger brother of the Hill Of Death) twice. It was plenty. I'm sure it's not hard to pick out the Hill Of Doom in the elevation graph below.

I marked laps at the start of each interval - it should be pretty clear from the lap pace data which laps were hard and which were easy. I think "easy" is a relative term. The entire workout, start to finish, was tough. And two lucky guys from our group had a surprise one-mile time trial thrown at them after that workout. Surprise! Those guys somehow managed to run sub-6-minute miles after that grueling speed-hill workout. I, on the other hand, could barely walk after that grueling speed-hill workout.

So it's a good thing we all went out for a nice sit-down dinner afterward. One of our members is leaving us for the summer to go down south and get married (big congrats to her!), so we decided to have a sort of bridal-shower-slash-going-away party thing. A funny thing happens when you get a bunch of recreational runners together and give them moderate amounts of alcohol. They turn into Olympic hopefuls. Suddenly, runners who were perfectly content to simply beat their own race times, become competitive animals who are hell-bent on beating other people. I actually heard some of my teammates growl last night while discussing who they wanted to beat in a race. Look at this picture of the group. Do they look like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves to you?


Not at all! But looks can be deceiving, my friends. They're out to get someone. Probably you. So watch out. It may be best to just let them pass.

You don't have to worry about me, though. I'm not out to get anyone. Although, if we have another after-FAST party, I will run faster and harder so I can get to dinner sooner. And if you happen to be in my way... well, maybe it's best if we don't talk about that. *growl*

Peace. Love. Train.