Ow. Ow, ow. Ow ow ow ow.

Ow. Ow, ow. Ow ow ow ow.

I ran hills last night. Well, technically, one hill, over and over again (eight times, actually).

The idea is, in between one mile warmup and cooldown, to run up this .3-mile stretch of hill in Sellwood Park at an easy pace, then jog or walk down, and then to go up seven more times, and to aim to improve my time by 5-10 seconds each time.

They say that hill work is speedwork in disguise, which is why I’ve been hitting the hills lately.

And, in fact, I did eventually achieve my goal. Here are the individual times (and equivalent per-mile paces):

1. 03:18 / 11:00
2. 03:03 / 10:10
3. 03:05 / 10:17
4. 02:42 / 09:00
5. 02:36 / 08:40
6. 02:36 / 08:40
7. 02:38 / 08:47
8. 02:26 / 08:07

A couple of bumps in the curve there, but like I said, I did eventually end up, on the last interval, achieving a speed within 40-80 seconds faster than I started out.

The funny part was the couple sitting at a park bench near my “finish line”, watching in amazement as I passed them, then turned around and headed back down the path, so many times. By the seventh time they had left, though, so they didn’t see my Snoopy dance when I had my final burst of speed.

And now, as I said to a friend last night, I’m taking at least one night off from running, or else my legs are going to fall off and fall apart, Daffy Duck-style. Which would be bad.