Great Hill? Ha!

New York has NOTHING when it comes to hills! Especially when you are comparing to Cincinnati.

Saturday I got to run with my old training group while I was in Cincy. It was fun, especially since my old running buddy, Sarah, was there. They were scheduled for an 18 mile run, but according to my plan I was supposed to do my big 20 miles. So I got to the Running Spot extra early (yuck) and ran 2 miles before the group workout. The first thing I noticed was how DIFFERENT the hills were. I mean, in Central Park there are lots of hills, but they are also separated by flat land. In Cincinnati, it is hill after hill after hill. And Great Hill in Central Park? Maybe it is the size of a small hill in Cincy. Maybe. I could feel it in my knees immediately. But I still maintained my <9:00 minute mile pace on those first two, so I was happy.

I was glad to see that the course we were running did follow the Pig course...including the new changes. But we also added on Millionaire's Mile in the beginning , which has some brutal hills. Sarah and I started out our run at a sub 9:00 minute mile and it was very apparent that we wouldn't be able to do that for long. The hills were just too killer. So we slowed down a bit (reminding each other that if one of us was holding the other back that the other should just go ahead).

The first 9 miles was cake for me. It was after that, that I was really feeling it. I even had to take some Tylenol 8-hour at the truck (thank goodness for the truck). I'm sure Sarah was thinking I had a huge potty mouth around the second half of the run. I just could not get over the hills.

As we started up to Eden Park I was really dying. We only had 5 more miles left but they were all of the killer hills on the course. Sarah needed to walk, and I needed to as well, so I am SO GLAD that she did. I was only pushing through the pain because I was running with her (which is a stupid thing to do). We walked up the hill leading into Eden Park and started running again at Mirror Lake, where we did a few laps to add on (the course was only 16.5 miles so we decided to add on 2 there). Up the killer, most humongous hill on the course we passed another runner who was honking like a goose (???). And then, of course another hill on the way back to Victory Parkway.

That one we had to walk again. And of course, who should come up behind us, but Coach Joe. (They always see you when you are slacking!). He walked with us up the hill and we talked about how we were really feeling it. He made me feel better though, because he said this was a REALLY REALLY hard 16.5 mile course because of all the hills (including some killer ones that are not actually on the course) and the placement of the hills (the worst ones at the end). He said the difficulty made it more like a 19 or even 20 mile run.

We finished and I logged a 3:20.28 for my 20 miles. Gone were my hopes in the back of my head that for some miracle reason my 8:45 pace last week was close to my marathon goal pace (I didn't really have THAT much hope for that anyway). But my 20 mile runs are usually pretty darn accurate in predicting how my marathons will go...so I am VERY pleased with a 10 minute pace on that killer course. ESPECIALLY since we walked twice.

Thank goodness for Sarah too! Not only did she make my run much more enjoyable (we talked the WHOLE time) but she pushed me to run well on that course! If you're interested, you can read her account of the run here.

I think next week I have a 14-miler, so I am just going to bask in this lovely , lovely taper!