#194 - Running uphill will kill me - July 13, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I ran 1 mile uphill.  Oh, man!  That's work!

After my big 5-mile success yesterday, I decided to increase the incline to max and see what I could do.  So I set it to 10% grade and started running.  My initial goal was 3 miles.  As I ran, the goal shortened quite a lot.  I was only able to keep a 5 mph pace, and at 1 mile, I was done.  It is a completely different animal than the flat 5-miler, or the 4% grade 3-4 miles I had been doing.

My course in 2 weeks is nearly 20% grade for the first mile.  I realized that running uphill really does require a significantly different set of muscles and mindset.  Glad I learned this now.  I'll have to change my routine a bit to capture this.

I left work at 2pm so I could finish preparing for the camping trip tonight.  I hit Sam's Club for food, and then A&P, and then home.  I set up, and by 5:25 or so pm, I was done.  We had 1 scout arrive, and the others eventually showed up, the latest around 8:30.  The new boys showed me their packed backpacks, and we took walks with them.  One of them brought his brand new pack, and it wasn't really designed for him.  This met 1 requirement for Tenderfoot.  Then we got them to start the fire, they all used an ax, picked a spot to camp (they chose the meadow), cooked dinner, and then they swam until 11pm.

It was a blast.  I was busy moving from 1 activity to the next, making sure the boys all got to complete the requirements they needed, and keeping the flow going.

Dinner was late, so we swam in the dark.
We had 7 boys (and sometimes me) shouting in the pool until 11pm.

Jake couldn't wait to swim until his dinner was done.  The
rest of us swam after we finished dinner at 9:30.