A week ago, I felt adventurous and eager to try something new. The result was the inaugural Vertical 5K (as it shall henceforth be named)! I felt it was worthy of it’s own shout-out Daily Chase-style post due to the hilarity and suffering that ensued.
Chasing42 Log: 20160919
Run: I was feeling antsy, and found myself thinking about all the climbing I had coming up at Grindstone. After a relatively restful weekend, my legs were feeling really good and I wanted to push things a bit harder. I had been out to the Newark Reservoir on several previous occasions and had enjoyed running the perimeter, hoping onto the nearby trails, and doing a few repeats on the enormous hill that stretches from the parking lot to water level. However, I thought it would be fun to take it to the next level, and see how many repeats I could complete.
The hill itself is grassy, and sits at about a significantly steep incline. There is a paved path that winds around up to the water level more gradually, but enough people take the shortcut that the city has found it necessary to redirect traffic up slightly different paths in the grass to avoid erosion. This made the .08 mile climb that much more challenging, and added to the fun! I began my ascents by pushing pretty hard and feeling my pulse jump as my heart and lungs were called on for a more intense experience. I was wearing relatively light weight road shoes unfortunately, so the run down did not offer nearly as much reprieve because I needed to be overly cautious of my footing so as not to do my best Jack impersonation.
The distance accumulated incredibly slowly on the steep incline, and my quads were burning pretty quickly. However, I loved watching the elevation gain increase much more quickly than the distance, with 80-90 feet of gain over each summit. I lost count of my repeats fairly quickly, but started paying attention to the distance and decided after about a mile that I would push for a full 5K. The final runs up involved quite a bit of pushing, but I hit my goal, and relished running down the hill one final time and taking a lap around the parking lot to shake out my legs. I was drenched from head to toe, and no doubt looked like a mess, but it felt incredibly. After 3.3 miles, I had gained 1,772 feet. This won’t be my last time tackling this hill and #chasing42!
