The Boston Marathon is 5 weeks away. Friends in the know admonish, those stinking hills! I’m thinking, ‘why not attempt to embrace the hills’? Okay, that may be too lofty a goal, but can I make peace with them?
Jean and I have been upping our hill work (a weekly 6 miler of rolling hills and on alternate weekends we do the same hills twice over). While running, we grimly say to each other, “hills break up the monotony” and “at least there’s a downhill— somewhere.” So what better tune up for Boston than the Caesar Rodney Half Marathon in Delaware?
Last year, the race was my definition of wretched, icy winds and grueling elevations. This year; a running epiphany!!! Specific training makes a particular difference. The hills and I declare a truce.
While it remains: better the hills that I know, than the hills that I don’t. Does the body somehow steel us for the familiar elevations? I didn’t skip up the hills this time, but I felt stronger and not as breathless. I came in a little faster than last year and I did not finish dazed and confused. I felt…okay.
Today, the front of my thighs are hurting. Such is life! At middle age, in this socioeconomic climate, direct pay offs are a rarified pleasure. Tomorrow, bring on the Centre Street hills (again).
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