Saturday, January 12, 2008

I forgot about the hills

Today I took advantage of the January thaw and went for a 4 mile run up Heartbreak Hill. Having spent the past few weeks on a treadmill, I realized I forgot about how hard it can be to run up hills... but even then, it was a good run.

One of the advantages of a treadmill is you can be a little lazy. If you start to run out of gas, you have the motor and the belt moving at a constant pace and it can pull you along. When you're on the road, that doesn't happen. You're on your own power the whole way.

But the thing I like about running on the road, there's a lot to distract me. The treadmill is the same scenery and it's not long before I'm checking my watch and waiting for the numbers to count down. On the road I get lost in sights, sounds, smells and colors. I love looking at my watch and realizing I just ran 2 minutes longer than I thought and want to keep going.

It was a good run. It was enough to keep me going for a while until we start getting real thaws.

1 comment:

Nini said...

Really glad that you're back in the swing of things. I finally kicked my "post-Europe" slump (at least in the running department)... and forced myself to get out there both weekend days knowing that the snow was going to interfere today... and I've gotta be honest, it.feels.great!

I have to run the 1/2 at Hyannis, so I guess it was time I snapped out of my "meh, I don't feel like getting out there" slump!