My problem was that I had a 7 mile run on the schedule that should have been run on Thursday (my new long run day) and I had extremely fatigued legs. I honestly thought I'd be lucky to eke out 2 miles before calling it quits.....but then the thought of some possible heckling spurred me to keep going. And as is the usual case I eased into a rolling rhythm that was slightly slower than my other runs lately, just a nice easy sub 10 minute pace........right up to around the 2 mile point........new home constructions are a welcome sight because they = portapotties!!! Since it's Christmas day, most places are closed so these were greatly appreciated, haha!
Nature call taken care of, its back to the zoning out of my "long" run......again fatigued legs, slower pace but I start thinking about running up what the locals call either Backbone Ridge or Hitler Hill (called so because it goes up at the angle of that hateful salute)........I'm tired, legs are shot, and I keep thinking "run up it, you're not going to make it, but run up it anyway". This is going through my mind on an endless loop and I honestly thought I was setting myself up for failure.........Not to mention that the light rain has turned into light sleet (eventually turned into light snow) and it's actually getting colder as I run......so 5.25 miles and I'm at the crossroads, turn left and head towards home, doing a 1 and 3/4 mile tour of the neighborhood to get my 7 miles or turn right and head towards that blasted hill....
I turn right.........how stupid am I? I'm exhausted and my legs are seriously grumbling at me to quit, I'm struggling to get up the incline to get to the road for that hill and I'm telling myself, you're not gonna make, you're not gonna make it. What kind of idiot sets themselves up for failure like that?????? Reach the top of the "little" incline and again it's turn left or turn around...... I turn left, then right and start up that bitch, still thinking I'm gonna have to stop half-way up.......
But then after a few yards up it, I start thinking, why, why, why would I set out to run up that KNOWING I couldn't make it up and immediately switched to this hill is gonna be MY bitch. Head up, look at the apex and just keep moving. Failure was not an option today......so yeah, lungs burning, legs screaming I ran up that sunovabitch hill all the way.........Lol, ok, ok, to the casual observer I was prolly at a snail's pace but I DID NOT WALK A SINGLE STEP. Job done.
Problem was I still had approx. 1.5 miles to get my dumbass back home, lol. Felt like I was slogging the entire distance too......but y'know what, my 7 miles got done and I didn't fail.
Today's stats
Mile 1 9:08
mile 2 9:14
mile 3 9:00
mile 4 9:05
mile 5 9:18
mile 6 9:50 (going up that hill)
mile 7 9:19
mile 7-7.17 9:15
Backbone Ridge by the way is .2 mile, 150 feet long at an 11% grade according to an accountant/cycling training partner friend of mine for the curious amongst my readers.
