HILLS

This post is purely to show off my dedication to running. I need someone to brag to other than my family who's tired of that, so this will work.

I live towards the top of a hill that is 418m long according to mapmyrun.com and some conversions. It's pretty steep, in the winter time if it's icy or really snowy, everybody has to park their cars at the bottom of the hill and walk up. Whenever somebody drives up it for the first time, they always make a comment about how steep it is.

Since I am already bored with running around my neighborhood, I decided to do hill sprints....up my hill. I've wanted to do this before, mainly during the summer when training for xc but somehow doing hill sprints up my hill in 90 degree weather didn't sound fun. Mainly I've wanted to do it just to see how many I could do. Since it was a wonderful bright and sunny 47 degrees outside (perfect running weather) I decided today would be a good day to try out the hill. Although the most I've done was two hills but there's always a first. My younger sister only thought I could do two while my mom didn't give me an exact answer but she said I would do what I was determined to do.

First hill: 2:22. Over 418m that are flat that would be terrible, but this is a hill with over a 30% grade at some parts. The first one was okay, but it was only the first one.

Second hill: 2:35. This hill was hard mentally. They all were really but this one was one of the hardest. I was repeating to myself things like "dedication. commitment. hard work". I kept thinking that if people saw me they would think "oh wow, she's so dedicated. Only someone really committed would do something weird and hard like that". That kept me going not only through this hill but also the others.

Third hill: 2:43. For some reason, this hill seemed to be the hardest physically. I don't know why but it seemed really hard to make it up the hill.

Fourth hill: 2:40. Climbing hills got easier. I sprinted the last part of the flat part of the hill just to get a better time but this hill just seemed easier.

Fifth hill: 2:30. I decided this would be the last one so I sprinted the first part, which wasn't really the smartest but I wanted it to be good. It turned out to be the second fastest, partly because I sprinted the end. The steep part of the hill was really hard because I was going faster but it was still a good hill.

The run report was mainly for me to look back on once I do the hills again, because I will do them again. This run was less about the physical aspects, although I got a wonderful anaerobic workout in. Instead it was about motivating myself and making myself run my hill. To look at it and say I can do that again instead of resting and stopping my workout short. My hill is all about motivation and the mental part of running although there is a physical gain. Just because it made me feel so good, I think I might add it in my weekly workout. This way I will be able to feel better about running and motivate myself.