Killer Hills

On Wednesday I tried a new type of HIIT workout.  I have been cutting back on longer cardio sessions for several months.  I still do 2 or 3 longer cardio workouts, but 3 days a week I replace them with these shorter, more intense workouts.  They are typically around 30 minutes (examples here, here, and here).  Those examples have some incline work, but usually a HIIT for me is solely speed variation.  1 minute at max speed and another minute at a recovery speed repeated 8-10 times.  This month, though Self magazine provided several other ideas.  They had one for the elliptical, one for the bike, one for the treadmill, and one for the rowing machine.  I chose the treadmill  one called the calorie torcher to try out on Wednesday and it focused on incline rather than speed.

Here’s how it went (I changed the speed a bit from the magazines suggestions just for an added challenge):

Minutes     Speed     Incline

        5                 6.5                0

         1                 6                     5

         1                  7.5                5

         1                  6                    6

         1                   7.3               6

         1                   6                    7

         1                   7.1                 7

         1                   6                    8

         1                   6.9                8

         1                    5                    9

         1                    6.7                9

         1                     5                    10

         1                     6.5                10

         1                     5                     11

         1                      6.3                11

         1                       5                    12

         1                       6.1                12

         1                        4                   13

         1                        5.9               13

         1                         4                   14

         1                         5.7              14

         1                          4                 15

         1                           5.5            15

         1                           4                 0

         1                           7.0            0

         1                            7.5            0 

Total:  30 minutes

I ran the half mile to the gym and then hopped on the treadmill and started right in.  I was jogging even at 4.0. I had to just to stay on the machine!  It got me to about 3 miles of HIIT.  I ran a final mile between a 7.0 and 7.5 and finished with a 1/2 mile walk  between 4 and 4.5 to catch my breath.  I walked home, too.  In the rain.  Even with the downpour, I couldn’t make my legs run.  They were jelly.  I bow down to the hill.

The speed demon in me would have had a bit of an issue with the 4.5 miles in 45 minutes (I usually do between an 8 and 8.5 minute mile depending on the day), but I couldn’t hear him over the screaming of my thighs.  “I’m on FIRE!”  Wow, this was a workout!  I plan to try to get this variation  in once a week and leave speed for the other 2 HIIT days.  I honestly couldn’t handle this more than once a week.  I respect (and somewhat fear) the incline.

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