Sunday, August 30, 2009

The View From the Back!

This morning we ran the "Hilly Eight" course with the SCR's from Granary Square. Since I missed this run the last time they did it, and listened to the complaining afterward, I knew I had better show up for this one. The course fit the description perfectly and started off immediately with a long slow uphill, and pretty much stuck with that theme the whole 8 miles. Except for the last mile when we were running down Rockwell and then down Valencia, it was one hill after another! Well hills are not my thing and I have always lagged behind C and Marathon Mom on the hills, and today was no exception. I feel like I have improved my hill running, (I didn't walk, but I sure wanted to), but I haven't come that far because today I felt like a "newbie" just trying to get to the end. Since we will be running "18" miles next weekend, I feel a little guilty complaining at all but here I am doing what I do best. It was good to do that run with my friends, they truly pulled me along today, and both of them seemed to take the hills in stride! Marathon Mom did not bring her GPS, so we don't know for sure, but she felt, and so did I that we kept a faster than normal pace. I am glad that run is over, I just wish that since it was a shorter run, that it would have felt a bit easier!

2 comments:

marathon mom said...

Well the good news is that this weekend was the last time we have to run the "hilly 8" route again. However, there's always a hill or two in every route we do. Don't forget, the 16 miler and the 20 miler both had Rockewell thrown in there. And the 18 miler has Sierra Hwy, Via Princessa, and Whites Canyon in there. I'm not sure why, but the second time doing this route did feel much easier. Maybe I knew what was coming so I could pace myself a little better. I could tell we were running much faster than our normal pace because we finished well ahead of a pack of runners we are usually behind and we were right behind Melanie and her friends.

Patty said...

Another "view from the back" that I forgot to mention, was our matching water belts. We got several comments on them by some of the older men in the group as they were running behind us. Not so funny the second time up a tough hill! I love my water belt and am pretty happy to have it on when we run those long runs! See you tomorrow.