Hills

If you happened to drive past me this morning at about6:50, near my house you might have been wondering why I was moon walking. I wasn't . Believe me I was trying hard to go up and forward but by the time I had reached my house I had reached my last hill and my legs were begging for a break.



When we first moved out here we came from a pretty flat area. Urban. We lived close to everything, grocery store, pharmacy, mall, my parents. And running , although I did it very infrequently , was a breeze there was hardly a hill in sight. Then we moved out here and all I can say is that if I wanted to be that parent who told her kids she had to walk to school up hill both ways, I really wouldn't be making it up. It is impossible to get to our house with out hitting at least one steep hill. Just when you go down a hill and think you are in the clear you round a corner and there is another hill. My husband likes to joke that if a tsunami hits we are fine we'll just have water front property. Which makes me think of " Mrs Twiggly and her Tree House". A great children's book about an eccentric woman who lived in a tree house and all the townspeople made fun of her until there was a flood. And then everyone wanted to rent space from Mrs. Twiggly. People laugh at us I am sure but not because we live a on hill.

So as I am training for this half marathon I calculated how many miles I need to run each week to gradually get myself to 13 miles total. I started out at 2.5 miles on Main Street which is relatively flat. We have a group who runs together on whatever days we can manage. There are now about 10 of us but you will rarely see all 10 of us at once. We're all moms and we run at 6 am so sometimes someone oversleeps. Sometimes someone wakes up and realizes her family will be much better off if mommy gets one more hour of sleep then if she goes out and chases the rising sun. The great thing is there is almost always someone who wants to run. We moved off of Main Street once we realized what a pretty run it was near my girlfriend's house and so we established a loop that was 3 miles. A week or so later I overslept and decided to run in my own neighborhood, the one with all the hills. I took a left out of my driveway and started the first steep climb, cussing pretty much the whole way because it really is steep. I know I was running but I am sure it looked like drowning by asphalt to cars going by. I made it to the top and took another left and breathed a short sigh of relief because this was just a slow incline. I detoured through a new development, one small hill and was back onto flat running. This stays flat for awhile and then you get to go down hill. Of course around here once you go down you must go up. This is called Great Hill Rd. Really it is. So up Great Hill I went and then down Great Hill I went which then brought me to another left and another pretty flat surface which then brought me to the bottom of my road which then I realized I had given myself 4 hills to run up. It wasn't pretty. That hill is not pretty. But that loop got me to 4 miles which was very inspiring.

This morning there were no emails that shot around about running so I decided it was time to up the anty and try the group loop of 4 miles but start from my house which would add about 2 more miles. I jumped out of bed at 5:45 ( mostly because I heard the baby fussing and I knew if I was still in the house my chance of getting out once she was awake was slim to none). I hit the pavement and as usual cussed myself out for about the first mile. It really is the worst part. Maybe because my body really isn't ready yet and it is just screaming at my mind to stop and go back to bed. I ran downhill and around the bend and got just past the meeting place for the loop and saw ahead of me a pony tail bouncing and knew it was one of my running mates. She had a pretty good pace and was a bit ahead of me so I just kept running behind her. After we had passed the small red barn and the clump of beautiful horses who stand by the side of the road the distance between us had lessened. Probably because everyone, except for myself, can't stand the smell of those horses and it pretty much slows the best of them down. I gave her a shout and we finished the last big hill together. As we came to the spot where I would branch off and run up hill 4 times. I groaned. My friend laughed but it was a friendly, understanding kind of laugh. We separated and she gave me a shout of "power through, you can do it." I heard that in my head all the way up those 4 hills. That and a little "Boom Boom Pow" from the MP3 player and we get to my moon walking episode. It was not an attractive run. I am pretty certain "Kermit" made an encore presentation. I could picture that Frog on that high bicycle and just knew what my limbs must have looked like but I kept going until I reached my driveway. I think my vision blurred at one point because I was attacked by drool and a wet nose from our dog who I could have sworn was no where to be seen when I came up the hill.

Be that as it may, I have brought myself up to 6 miles, well okay 5 and about 3/4 of a mile but as my friend A . A would say "if it is close round up" and so round up I will and up and up and up.....