Hills are hard.

I’ve been avoiding hills.  I’m not afraid of hiking up rural or urban hills (even the gigantic one that leads to my house) but running up them is a whole different story and perhaps one I should have given more consideration to prior to signing up for a marathon in the hilliest city on the face of the planet!  Needless to say, I’m a bit behind on the hill portion of my training (story of my running life it seems) and figured I better get my act together or resign myself to the fact that it might take me 8 hours to finish the marathon as a result of walking slowly up all the hills (and possibly rolling down the other side).   

So with supposedly “seamless” socks and new pair of shoes #2 (why are my parts so needy and demanding??), I set off from Crissy Field for a 6.5  mile run which not only included running across the Golden Gate Bridge (a gradual uphill for what seems like the entire thing in both directions) but also up the fairly steep hill leading to the bridge… take that hill training! Other than some lingering toe discomfort (seamless socks my a$$), it was a good run and the hill actually felt pretty good to which I am giving partial credit for to that magic stick massager thingy I got at the running store as it worked wonders on my tight calves and achilles.  Lest you think I lost a foot (or shoe) in the great hill challenge, rest assured that there is only one in this picture because the other one was securely on the ground while I flung the other rather unwilling leg much higher than it wanted to go onto the railing for the lovely photo op.

In addition to becoming the master of hills (well, at least of one hill... and maybe more of an apprentice than master), I’ve also been doing a better job spending quality time with my mat Pilates and yoga for runners DVDs… in person sessions would likely be a bit better but this is what works for my schedule and such for now so I figured it would be better than nothing (and besides, I’m starting to get used to the creepy blank stares of the yoga lady as well as the Ann Curry look alike on the Pilates one).  My foam roller (think giant pool noodle), Traumeel (magic homeopathic remedy for muscle aches and inflammation) and Epsom salts have also been getting their fair share of attention so next on the never-ending list of training things that need to be addressed are hydration (getting MUCH better with that one!) and nutrition (peanut butter directly out of the jar on a spoon and red wine seems like a perfectly sensible meal to me... it's organic peanut butter sweetened with honey from happy little bees and the wine has all sorts of medically proven good things in it so how can it that be bad?!).  On that note, off to have a phone date with half of the Dynamic Duo to discuss and possibly solve all of life's problems while more than likely eating peanut butter out of the jar and sipping a glass of red wine!

Cheers,

SF runner in training