I used the Baltimore street hill on the north side of Patterson park. It's about 700m long and steeper at the top. Did 600m repeats up and down. Charles St north of Penn Station is also decently uphill all the way to ~30th St. 'bout a mile but there are some lights. Farther north off Falls is Bellmore, which is just an evil hill.
Bellmore and Gun, at their steepest parts, are definitely too steep to run and get much benefit I feel. And they're way steeper than anything at Boston.
Funnyrunner doesn't live in the city, but I think she's moving to Baltimore County soon. If you ran up and down York Road or the more-dangerous equivalent of Falls Road, it would be a good simulation.
Klim showed me a great loop in DC that is a "mini boston" course. 20 miles in length, the first 9 or so miles are down hill, followed by 6 miles of hills and then 5 miles flat. I plan on running a few big tempo runs on this course throughout my Boston surge.
Here is a link (http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=281207) to a 21+ miler we did in prep for boston last year. It starts and ends in druid hill park. We did 5 minute tempos - on both the up and downhills.
Although having a rhythm on downhills is important for boston, i think it's even more important to train your body to be as efficient as possible while tired on the up-hills. The newton hills section was even harder than I anticipated - and I had didn't have much left in the tank for the rest of the race.
Saw that email. Does anyone know exactly how full it is? I wanted to wait until after Vegas to sign up so I can get a spot in the first corral. I don't think a 2:52:55 is going to get me that and I should be a fair amount faster at Vegas...
If you want some nice downhills, you might try Loch Raven. The roads there go up and down, and I remember running a long, smooth downhill there once, but I don't know where exactly. It was one of the main roads leading directly into the park, so you can find it in your car.
Speaking of downhills, I found one here where back in May I ran an entire 5.5km downhill the whole way (5% grade) and came through 5k in like 14:30. It was a hell of a lot of fun.
Oh, and NCR is a very slight incline/decline. It made about 5 seconds difference per mile when I ran an immaculately-paced 20-miler there once.
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9 comments:
already done it.
Hey - where are some good, long downhill repeats to run for Boston prep, everyone?
thanks!
I used the Baltimore street hill on the north side of Patterson park. It's about 700m long and steeper at the top. Did 600m repeats up and down. Charles St north of Penn Station is also decently uphill all the way to ~30th St. 'bout a mile but there are some lights. Farther north off Falls is Bellmore, which is just an evil hill.
There is also Gun Road at Patapsco....
Bellmore and Gun, at their steepest parts, are definitely too steep to run and get much benefit I feel. And they're way steeper than anything at Boston.
Funnyrunner doesn't live in the city, but I think she's moving to Baltimore County soon. If you ran up and down York Road or the more-dangerous equivalent of Falls Road, it would be a good simulation.
Klim showed me a great loop in DC that is a "mini boston" course. 20 miles in length, the first 9 or so miles are down hill, followed by 6 miles of hills and then 5 miles flat. I plan on running a few big tempo runs on this course throughout my Boston surge.
Here is a link (http://www.usatf.org/routes/view.asp?rID=281207) to a 21+ miler we did in prep for boston last year. It starts and ends in druid hill park. We did 5 minute tempos - on both the up and downhills.
Although having a rhythm on downhills is important for boston, i think it's even more important to train your body to be as efficient as possible while tired on the up-hills. The newton hills section was even harder than I anticipated - and I had didn't have much left in the tank for the rest of the race.
Saw that email. Does anyone know exactly how full it is? I wanted to wait until after Vegas to sign up so I can get a spot in the first corral. I don't think a 2:52:55 is going to get me that and I should be a fair amount faster at Vegas...
I think you are able to provide an updated time after you qualify. Might be worth checking into with BAA, depending on when Vegas is.
Also, there's really not that big of a difference between the 1st and 2nd corral.
If you want some nice downhills, you might try Loch Raven. The roads there go up and down, and I remember running a long, smooth downhill there once, but I don't know where exactly. It was one of the main roads leading directly into the park, so you can find it in your car.
Speaking of downhills, I found one here where back in May I ran an entire 5.5km downhill the whole way (5% grade) and came through 5k in like 14:30. It was a hell of a lot of fun.
Oh, and NCR is a very slight incline/decline. It made about 5 seconds difference per mile when I ran an immaculately-paced 20-miler there once.
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