Standing at the bottom of the hill at Cleveland Road in 2008, it looked like Mt. Everest to me. My personal trainer took me there and said that it's never too soon to run hill repeats. I had never trained for a marathon before. Well I had never run before March of 2008 so I had no idea what this involved.
She took out her stopwatch and so began the hill training portion of my road to the Boston Marathon 2009.
Training for Boston 2009 was the last time I ran hill repeats -- until yesterday.
Tom and I did a tempo run around the Reservoir to warm up. He kept an eye on my Nike+ which was tracking us at a 14:40 minute/mile pace. I remember when I did an 11 mile pace around Jamaica Pond at the height of my training. I'll get there again!
We walked at a good pace to the hill on Eliot Crescent near our house to do hill repeats.
We decided to not use the stop watch but run from the inside out.
It was hot and I was determined!
Sure there is a small part of me that wonders can my left knee stand up to the grueling rigors of training for a half marathon and then a full marathon but I can not listen to those fears.
As I charged up the hill yesterday I felt a surge of strength; a feeling of my power as a runner, as a woman, as a woman who lived through a hellish childhood and young adult life to stand proudly and firmly in my life. I am experiencing an intimate connection to my body for the first time in my life and I can use positive self talk to heal everything.
It was a sacred experience to do a tempo run and hill repeats - just like all the big kid runners do.
We'll now incorporate hills into our training every other week and the ultimate test will come on November 1st when we run Falmouth in the Fall.
But right now, I have another week of training in the books and I am icing, stretching, and allowing my body to rest and recover. To going the distance! To the joy in the journey!
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