What exactly is a hill?

Shockingly, I did manage a workout last night!

I got home from work, set up the fan to blow right on the treadmill, and hopped on for my hill workout. The schedule called for 45 minutes but I didn't have quite that much time between when I got started and when I had to run out to pick up Brian (his car is still dead).

I was planning on using a pre-programmed hill workout on my treadmill or the Pete the Trainer hill workout but ran into trouble when the treadmill program was too slow and Pete's was too long and fast. I decided to set off on my own and just kind of wing it.

I ran the first five minutes then kept the same pace but started upping the incline every minute for the next 5 minutes. Then I put it back to it's normal setting of 1.5 for another five minutes. I think that got me up to an incline of 4 before I went back down. I found when I got back to the flat setting I wanted to go a little faster so I upped the speed every now and then. I did this little routine twice and that took me to the 20 minute mark when I decided to walk for a couple minutes to dry off and drink some water. I started running again and did another 20 minute set although the second set was probably flatter and faster than the first set but I did throw in some hills but never up to 4.0 again. By the time I hit the 40 minutes I realized I had to slow down and cool off before jumping in the car to get Brian so I walked the last 2 or 3 minutes until I got to 3.75 miles and then I quit. I think the time was 43:36 or something when I stopped.

I'm satisfied with the whole thing. It felt good and I know I could have done the whole 45 if I didn't have a time constraint and I didn't over do it. I'm happy with it since that makes four days in a row of decent exercise and that's pretty remarkable for me.

I am very curious about what a good incline setting is for simulated hill work and if I really was wimpy with my chosen settings.

Best Song of the Run: I've Done Everything For You - Rick Springfield