Friday, February 17, 2012

Holy Hills!

So Dallas has one clear exercising upside -- you can run outdoors pretty easily year-round, and one clear exercising downside -- it's flat as a pancake. 

We're staying with hubby's best friend in Birmingham right now (leaving today for Mardi Gras in Mobile), and all 4 of us went for a run yesterday.

Hubby's friend mentioned as we set out that we're in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  He wasn't joking.  Within a quarter mile of their house, we were on a decent downhill.  Dallas-sized.  But that was followed by an uphill worse than any I've seen in Dallas.  And I even drive to special places sometimes to run hills!  That was followed by a slight down, and then an even bigger up.  Followed by a long, gradual downhill.

There was a little loop in their neighborhood that was about 1.2 miles, so we just did that several times.  My training schedule, ironically, had 5 miles of rolling hills scheduled yesterday.  I'd just assumed that if I ran at all (I did consider just resting, per my PA's advice, but my ankle really is fine), it would just be flat and easy.

Surprise!  I got my hills in, undoubtedly even more than I would have if I'd met my buddies in Dallas! 

I love flat marathons, and am always surprised by the many people who prefer slight rolling hills.  Now I understand.  Most of the rest of the world is used to slight rolling hills, or even big rolling hills.  Just a Dallas disadvantage I guess. 

1 comment:

  1. I live in Winnipeg, MB where our only hill is a man made one (called garbage hill, as the hill was created by covering over an old landfill site!). Seriously - there is one small stretch of slightly rolling hills near my house, everything else is flat.

    I like to run it to change things up, but real hills are a challenge for me as I just don't train anywhere near them!

    Glad you had a good run and your ankle is better.

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