Nick and I spent 10 days on a road trip at the end of June/early July. I only got 2 runs in, but also several hikes and walks, so I stayed active. The heat and altitude were a challenge for me. My first run was along the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. It was about 75 degrees and I was at 6,500 feet. That's quite a big difference from my 60-65 degree (max) at sea level runs I'm used to. I did well. I only ran 12 seconds slower than my run from home a week earlier. Not bad considering the conditions. My second run was in Utah at about 6:30 am. I got up and ran immediately. It. Was. Awful! My legs felt like lead and I felt like I couldn't move. It did, however, reaffirm that I need time in the morning to wake up. I am not a runner who can get up and go. I need at least an hour to wake up and get moving.
We've been home for a week, but I didn't run. We spent three days moving and I haven't had the energy to do anything else. I've also had a lack of motivation. I preferred to lie on the couch and watch TV. I'm not sure why, running just felt like too much effort and I wanted to be lazy. Our new place is surrounded by hills. I know that pretty much anywhere I run, I will be doing hills...which I don't like. The only route that lets me do flat would require me to run down a large hill, run through downtown, and run back up the large hill. Every other route has rolling hills, at least. Yikes!
I was feeling lazy this evening, but I told myself I wanted to run (even though I didn't really). I actually really wanted to stay home and watch The Office. Between episodes, I ran into our room and quickly changed into my running clothes. I told myself that I could watch one more episode, but the thing that surprised me was that I was eagerly anticipating the end of the episode so that I could go run. I almost stopped the episode early. I decided to start with a short run and it went pretty well. The run felt great and my knee was doing pretty well. The hardest part was finishing my run by going uphill. It was a constant and relatively steep hill. Ugh! The whole time up, I was repeating one word to myself: "Strong." This wasn't a word I picked out ahead of time, it just came to me in the moment. I kept thinking of how strong I will be if I constantly run hills...something I have always avoided like the plague. A lot of runners struggle with hills. I'm telling myself that I'm lucky to have hills to practice on. A couple of months ago, I was looking for upcoming races. I kept getting discouraged by runs with hills. I told myself I couldn't do them. But, I can. I just need to train for them. The Prefontaine Memorial run is in September and goes right by my house. It is a 10k (6.2 miles) and the course has some doosie hills. However, I will be running these hills a lot and, now that I've accepted that, hills don't seem so scary anymore. I'm ready to tackle this new challenge; I can't avoid them forever.
Cheers!
Ashley
This is how I now feel about hills:
