**GROAN**I know the feeling, if you run, you know the feeling. The feeling is not one of joy. when you come to the base of a hill and look up you assess your situation. Many thoughts go through your mind at the base of a hill."I must keep running", "How high is my heart rate going to go", and "Breathe, breathe breathe!" I am new to hill running. Interurban trail is my normal haunt and elevation changes amount to about 6-10 feet - which you still feel towards the end of a run. Hills are very usefull things. I have hit a wall running on the flat - 6 mph is the wall. From all I have heard on the internets, hills will help you build your "base". which is to say that if you run hills you will be able to run faster, longer. In running, longer and faster is the goal.
Yesterday I did not bring my gear to work. I still wanted to run so on the way home I figured I'd do a local neighborhood run. What a difference terrain makes! Although the run was almost a mile short of my normal Interurban 5.2 I found that "shorter" does not necessarily mean "easier".
On the flip-side, running downhill is easy, but impact to the body is greater. When running downhill attention to joint health is needed. I try to maintain the same pace throughout the run, but heading downhill I need to shorten my stride to limit the impact and keep the speed from building too much. I'm thinking I may need to make this my regular run, Interurban is easier, but if I want to keep to my "marathon" goal, I want to be able to handle hills more easily. Luckily, in the Pacific Northwest, hills are around every corner.
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