Barefoot Hill Intervals: 7 Sets by I K

With 9 days remaining before Ohme 30 K Road Race 2018 on Feb. 18 I did anaerobic training focusing on speed. It's 1 K hill repeats. The target pace is 4:00/K. It's doable on the flat. But it's not as easy with hills. I thought of wearing a pair of aqua shoes, but dropped the idea at the last moment and went barefooted. 

I jogged at a comfortable pace at first. I enjoyed the direct contact with the cold pavement at first, but soon it started feeling so cold that I feared frostbite. I hoped that the cold would stay bearable as I got warmed up. At least that's what usually happens when I run in bare feet. 

A 2 K jog brought me to my favorite 1 K shuttle course with a set of one long downhill and one long uphill, and another of one short upward incline and one short downward incline. (See the map below.)

By the time I reached there I had felt sufficiently warmed up, so I immediately went off for my first lap. You can never take wide stride when you run down a hill in bare feet. It could cause unbearable friction between the sole and the road surface, and your sole can easily develop blisters. So I need to take short strides, and cannot go so fast. This affect my time, of course. I need to increase my pace in other parts of the course, usually when the inclines are not so steep, or when I go up. But increasing the pace when going up can easily take a toll on your legs. But that's OK. It's training. Not a race. Pushing yourself is expected. 

I had originally planned to do it ten sets, but I dropped the idea and settled for seven. I didn't want to sacrifice speed over the number of sets. When I do many sets, I tend to slow down my pace a little. This is probably because my defense mechanism sets in and tries to allow myself to last until the tenth set. Of course there is a great feeling of accomplishment when you complete all ten sets, but the quality of each set is compromised. Tonight I didn't want that to happen. Instead, I wanted give my best to each single set. The results? Well, not all times were good, but I finished under 4:00 in one set, and I feel good about it. 

Here is the details of the training tonight:

Jog 2 K: 11:30.35

1st K: 4:05.30

Rest: 2:00.41

2nd K: 4:00.05

Rest: 2:00.18

3rd K: 3:58.91

Rest: 2:00.31

4th K: 4:11.89

Rest: 2:00.46

5th K: 4:05.30

Rest: 2:00.19

6th K: 4:16.07

Rest: 2:00.21 

7th K: 4:07.33

Jog 3 K: 18:07.34

Total 12 K: 1:10:24

As a result of running at a fairly fast pace without shoes and on the incline, I got two large bloody blisters in my right sole. Now that's really bad at this stage of final conditioning toward the race on the 18. But what's done is done. There is nothing I can do. I'll give it a complete rest for a couple of days, and hopefully by this Sunday it will have healed enough to allow for a shoe-clad training.