In it for the long run

Tuesday evening workout (July 13): Lemon Hill repeats

Across Kelly Drive from the bike path that we use for most of our Tuesday evening workouts is a winding, curvy road leading to a colonial house on land originally owned by Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, until Morris, somewhat overextended financially, found himself in debtors’ prison (oops! Note to self: credit card bill due!). The property was then sold to Henry Pratt who built the house now known as Lemon Hill.* This is one of the stops of the Fairmount Park Trolley house tours. Tourists can ride a bus built in the shape of an old-fashioned trolley and exit the bus at various points to look at the historic houses along the route.

Runners working out with Peak Performance/Team26-2 are not taken to Lemon Hill on a bus. After a 1.5 mile warm-up (and when we’re told to run to the ¾ mile mark on Kelly Drive, we know there are hills coming), we run sometimes uphill repeats and easy down, sometimes race pace both ways. Last night was the latter. The workout consisted of continuous running up and down for approximately fifteen minutes at hard effort, followed by a few minutes rest. For the next set, we ran half the number of up/downhill laps we’d managed to complete in the next set. For me, that would officially be 1.75 laps (since I did 3.5 laps), but math is not my strength and whatever ability is left when I'm running gets steamed out in a hill workout, so I did 2 the second time to keep it simple.

This was followed by a cool-down run along the bike path to the ½ mile point and back. Then Team26-2 and any interested members of Peak Performance assembled behind the Art Museum for form drills. The first two drills consisted of two-footed jumps that reminded me a little of the way grade school girls jump rope, then skips, then the side-to-side steps that we did on Saturday. Then some stretching.

Then ... then ... zzzzz. Don’t wake me. I’m dreaming of lemonade on Lemon Hill.

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* Source: http://www.phila.gov/fairpark/culture/architecture/lemonhill.html; this site is an excellent resource for information on Fairmount Park

posted by DPMcManus @ 10:42 AM