Hills

Running hills is not something I enjoy. When I encounter them on our weekly runs, I try to defeat them, using my arms, pushing through my legs, focusing on leaning forward. Then, after 30 seconds to a minute, I am done with the hill and can recover. It works pretty well.

Then there are hills like the one today. We met the running group in Portland and had 7 miles slated for the day. The plan was to follow the route for the Shamrock Run coming up in March. Now, I had heard it was uphill, but I had not seen the elevation profile. I was ready to attack those hills. We started out, ran through downtown which all seemed to be slightly uphill - totally manageable. And then we hit the HILL. I immediately started slowing down and falling back from the group. Mike slowed down with me and encouraged me to keep one foot in front of the other. I haven't wanted to walk that bad in a long time. We finally made it to the turn around at 3.5 miles. I was beat, but the pace group was still in sight. Overall, we climbed 450 feet. Mike told me that our average pace at the turn around was 10:55. I was pretty impressed with that.

The way down was glorious. It was a beautiful day and we could see all of Portland. I worked for that view and you had better believe that I enjoyed it :) My legs were DONE by the time we made it back to the car, but I felt pretty accomplished.

We will probably run that hill again as a workout before the race. Then, when race day comes, I will be ready!