My Introduction to Apple Street with Sweatshop Running Community
Posted on Jul 16, 2012 under 5-10k, All Weather Running, Club Runs, Hill Work | No CommentI had been warned last week that this Monday’s outing would be along Apple Street, which I had vaguely looked up but wasn’t too sure about. I decided to give it a go, despite my love/hate relationship with hills!
Chatted with a few people in the shop and it started raining just as we set off. I settled into conversation with someone as we started climbing gently towards Werneth Low, and at times I seemed to be going quite fast and it was a struggle to keep up the conversation.
Then we got to Apple Street, and I became a little worried when the group leader set us off in waves, so challenging was this crazy hill! I wondered what I had let myself in for! A group was sent up and then I was sent up next, with the leader imploring me to take it slowly. I made the first incline, it was steep and quite long, but I felt fine, and caught up with the first wave of runners, then the hill zigzagged and there was another long incline. I thought that might be it but then we reach a snaking bit that seemed to get progressively vertical, and I started going really slow. I was breathing very hard and my heart was working overtime – it was a tough hill, but I was up for it, and enjoyed it in a weird kind of way, managing not to curse in the slightest but just keep going and then even powered up the last little slope. Taking it slowly early on helped, and the heavens opened at the top. In actual fact, we were in the heavens – the hill had taken us up so far that we were actually in the clouds, and the next bit of running was over Werneth Low, where we ended up running through the hill-kissing clouds.
At that point I got a bit worried as the rest of the group seemed to start going well out in front of me, I couldn’t tell if they had sped up or I was slowing down. On the descent I was careful not to go too fast, wary of damage to my knees, and just tried to stay in touch and conserve energy. Once we got back to familiar territory and I knew there was only about a mile to go, I got a second wind, and caught up with the back markers, and suddenly I was flying along at about 4 mins per km, faster than I have run in a long time. It was downhill, but suddenly I was stretching out and flying along and the rest of the group were left behind. I felt like I could carry on like that for miles, but it also felt great to come to a stop back outside the shop and wait for the others to finish. One of these days I will stop overcompensating for my ill-fated first run with the Wednesday group, ha ha!!!!
So all in all a great outing, I conquered an evil hill, ran through clouds, and flew for a mile – not bad for a rainy Monday night!
Need to take it easy, but if I could run like I did in the last mile in a 10k I’m sure I could smash 50 minutes again!