A Blistering Hill Interval Run
Yesterday I had a blistering run. Literally. Tuesdays are my hill/interval days and yesterday was no different. I was planning on running 8x400m (0.25 mile) intervals on a treadmill at 5% incline. I prefer to run the hill intervals on the treadmill as they are more consistent and more controlled than running up a hill. But the weather was just too nice in the morning so I ran right in front of my neighborhood on a 2.8% incline instead and ran 8x368m (0.225 miles). I started with a 10 minute warm up then did the 8 runs up and down the hill and finished with another 10 minutes of cool down for a total of 5.9 miles. It was a good run and I ran the intervals hard. Here are my splits and paces for the 8 segments:
| Split | min/mi | min/km | HRRMax% |
| 01:18 | 05:54 | 03:40 | 88.8 |
| 01:21 | 05:59 | 03:43 | 90.2 |
| 01:23 | 06:11 | 03:50 | 91.6 |
| 01:22 | 06:03 | 03:46 | 92.3 |
| 01:19 | 05:52 | 03:39 | 93.7 |
| 01:24 | 06:10 | 03:50 | 93.7 |
| 01:25 | 06:20 | 03:56 | 93.7 |
| 01:28 | 06:32 | 04:03 | 93.0 |
I think I did really good but after the run I felt a bit of a pain on my left foot. As soon as the shoe and the sock came off I was looking at a huge blood blister the size of Texas. It was right next to the other blister that I got a month ago on a 6 mile long run which was actually a lot bigger than originally anticipated. I went on with my day and didn’t know what to do about the blister or how it would affect the rest of my running for a while. On my way home I went to Walgreen’s and bought some Moleskin
It turns out I needed it. I tried to research the best way to deal with a blister but there just wasn’t a lot of information available especially when I was looking for answers about “how to treat the blister so I can run another 28 miles this week on it?”. So I made the best decisions I could on my own and hoped for the best. I punctured the blister last night and drained it. It felt better already with the pressure relived. I let it heal and dry overnight then this morning I cut a nice patch of moleskin to go over it and went for a 6 mile easy run.
When I run I generally go out and back so it would have been 3 miles out then 3 miles back. But with the fear of not being 100% due to the blister I took a more cautious route and ran out 1 mile then did four laps of a mile loop and ran back for the last mile. The worry was unfounded, the Moleskin held up awesome and is probably one of the best running aids there is. I will apply this stuff to my foot in these areas even if there is no blister next time that is how good this stuff is. Big thumbs up for Moleskin! The run was uneventful, averaged 8:34 min/mile (5:19 min/km) and listened to some tunes. I left the moleskin on all day and I couldn’t even tell that I had it on or that I had a blister. I took it off for the evening bath but I think I’ll put on another patch tomorrow morning before I head out for my 45 minute tempo run.
Ouch!!! Those things are painful! Hope it heals up soon.
Chad´s last blog ..Nutrition Monday: Review of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution
That’s good to know. I had a blister for a few days after using my new running shoes. I wish I had known about those moleskin things!
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Moleskins Rock!
[...] talking about my running a lot lately. I wrote about the different kind of running days I have, hill intervals, tempo runs, fartlek runs and long runs but I never really talked about why I’m doing the [...]