Hills are my Bitch!

It's Sunday, so that means a nice morning run with my Partner. This was the first time in a while that we got to run in her community. My area is more or less flat, which makes it perfect for a beginner like me, or for someone hoping to work on increasing their speed. But my partner's area is all challenge. She lives at the top of a hill.. A nice steep hill.

But we wanted to challenge ourselves to do it. We started this morning off hoping that we could just finish a single loop of her community, which was 2.5km. For myself, I had no expectations of completing a full 5k here, just because the hills are brutal and I have never run her loop solid before. And we both really wanted to just run, no walks, no breaks. So if that meant only half of our normal run, then that was fine.

We started off with our warmup walk and started our way downhill. Halfway down, I turned on the GPS and off we ran. Within the last half of the first kilometer, uphill we began. This was by far the hardest run I had ever done. I know that isn't saying much since Ive only been running a short time, and I only have about 10 full 5k's under my belt, but it was difficult. I made sure to slow my pace down, breath deeply and just concentrate on keeping my feet moving and my breath even.

To help add a bit more distance to our short loop, my partner swung us in an out of a few cul-de-sacs and then into a little community loop, going downhill and then circled back uphill. Little did we know just how much more this detour was adding into our distance.

I will admit, I had two points along our run where my feet were barely moving after than a fast walk. I almost stopped the running motion twice.

Almost.


We pushed through, both of us exhausted from the hill climbs, but knowing the last third of our run was all downhill. We passed by my partner's house and I think both of us had a very slight pause in our head, wanting to stop right then and there. But we didn't.

Downhill we went to finish out on a high note. For our last 150 feet or so, we both just broke into a sprint. Both of us squealing in delight in how great it felt to let our legs stretch out fully. It felt wonderful!!
We got to the path marking the entrance to the ravine.. our end point, and I grabbed my phone to see how far we came.
I asked my partner what she thought, and her guess was barely 3km. I thought between 3.5-4km.

4.67km ... 38.51mins.


Holy shit!

Had we known just how close we were to 5k, we would have just ran into the ravine to finish it off, but by then we had both hit our level of exhaustion, and it won out.

I know our time is a little skewed due to our all out sprint at the end, but still. It was a pace 4 seconds/km faster than our last run together.. 12 seconds faster than my run on Wednesday.


While I was cursing her name all through our run this morning, I was definitely glad we did it and pushed through it together. It was by far the best run I had done.

Thanks A