Hills, Baby!!!!

My first attempt at any major “hill” in a marathon was in ’08 at the Big Sur Marathon. Big Sur was a marathon on my radar screen since I ran the Seattle Marathon like, oh, a hundred years earlier; I was at the Seattle Expo and while wandering around, the Big Sur Marathon committee booth was showing a video of the race. It was love at first sight and I knew that someday, I wanted to run this one. I don't know about you, but I'm originally from a part of the country where I thought “rolling hills” were gigantuous. Then I moved to Colorado and good grief, did I learn what a hill was. Still, I didn’t love hills – and I still really don’t. So it’s not like I was actually going to attempt this little race any time soon – not until I got over my fear of running up them mountains in my backyard. I had twins to bare and a life to live, Big Sur was just a mere dream.


Fast forward 99 years, I was out on a little run over at the state park near my house and ran into a long-time running friend (Kathryn) whom I had not seen in ages. We used to run a lot together when our kids were itty-bitty; we’d share babysitting services to split the cost. Man, that seems like forever ago. Her and I had experienced a rather disastrous San Diego Marathon 5 years earlier which landed me in a medical tent with an IV fluid drip due to over dehydration (does one “overly” dehydrate or are you just “dehydrated” – either way, I was a mess!) and her in same tent for salt replenishments. I think I endured the worst lack-of-hydration fate…but it’s not the contest I really relished winning. I gave up marathoning for 5 years because of said little H2O incident; I was scared to death I was going to just do that – die! I’m all about dying doing what you love vs. cancer or some other long, agonizing process, but at the age of 36 with 3 little kiddos at home, now just didn’t seem like the right time.

So Kathryn and I start chatting on a beautiful sun-filled mid-October afternoon and getting caught up in past running memories. Before I knew it, we’re at Starbucks with internet access making hotel reservations, cashing in frequent flyer miles and registering for the Big Sur Marathon. Which was 6 months later.

Good Lord, what did I just do? I hadn’t run a marathon in a bit over 5 years and any sort of race at all was fast approaching 3 years. I was 15 lbs over marathon weight. Big Sur was like nowhere even close to my reach! Yikes!

3 panic attacks later, I hired a personal trainer, I ate perfectly, I strength trained, I gave up alcohol (gasp) ... and I landed in a hospital with another serious bout of dehydration, which for a while my doctor was convinced was “the worst kidney infection I’ve ever seen.” Ha! HA, I said. I’m going to Big Sur and I’m going to run. I got to the start line of that race in the best shape I’d ever been in. In fact, I was beaming with so much confidence in my newly found body revision I was certain I could qualify for Boston.

The allure which makes Big Sur such a desired, sold-out quickly race, is that it’s drop-dead gorgeous. I have been to breath-taking gorgeous parts of the country before and I, myself, live in a state with profound beauty surrounding me. But no beauty has beat my heart faster than that of the ocean along the Big Sur coast. I was in heaven and I ran like I had no fear in the world.

I won’t indulge in great detail about this little lack-of-hill-fear strategy but suffice it to say, running a pace almost a minute/mile faster than I ever had in a marathon and enduring a 2-mile long hill with a 83% grade (really! ;) ) at mile 11 slammed me back to reality (Me at notorious Hurricane Point). Oh, I cranked up that beast and high-fived everyone around me. But by the time the next round of hills came, and they came in abundance, I was leaving my breakfast at mile 18 and cramping with night-time Charlie horses in each calf. Boston at Big Sur? Hahaha, yeah - not so much Jilly!

Um yeah, I was not ready to run those hills in Big Sur. No kidding!! At least not at a neck-breaking pace I envisioned. It took me many months to get over that race and move on but soon, I was racing up Mt. Evans (4000’ up in 14.5 miles) and Pikes Peak (8000’ up in 13.1 miles). By golly, if I can’t beat ‘em, I was going to join ‘em. Still, I was no mountain goat. People ran past me in those races like I was standing still; I was gagging for air, they were breezing by. The last mile alone in Pikes Peak took me 38 minutes. 38!!

But I did them and I continuted more strength training and I ran hills in my daily routes. I still didn’t enjoy these things called hills but I no longer feared them. I entered Boston (finally qualifying in St. George, a downhill race thank you :), 6 months after Big Sur) in great shape again and ready to tackle the hills from miles from 17- 20. I mean, look at the profile, they aren’t THAT bad. A friend had been there the week before on business and said they were “nothing.” Okay, I’m ready, bring ‘em on!!! I finished those nothing-hills in Boston last year and I never could regain my pace again. Leg cramps, stomach cramps and come mile 22, I swore I’d never run another marathon. Ever.

So here I am, 4 marathons later, ready to tackle Boston again. No one ever said I run with all marbles intact but I try to stamp out all temper tantrums I have during a race 2 days later. Those are just well-deserved rants, nothing more. To me, there’s nothing like a bad race to fuel my desire to tackle it smarter next time. One day I’ll be back to Big Sur, that I promise, but the race of focus for me right now is Boston … and not just Boston, but those notorious calf-burning hills to be precise!

What am I doing differently? Well, first, I’m doing a lot of hill repeats. Not at neck-breaking paces, but at a pace that feels challenging yet doable. I’m running my recovery runs with some hills in them. I’m relaxing my upper body and not tensing it when I attack upwards. I’m keeping my arms at my sides, pumping me forward and not swishing across my chest like we do with normal running. And the key component I think that’s helping me, I’m doing a sh*%-load of glute and core work: 3-way lunges, glute bridges, leg press, dead-lifts, step ups. Oh man, I feel the muscles in this aging booty getting stronger; yesterday I finished my 12x400’s @5-7% feeling amazing. Huh??? ME??? Hell yea, me!! I think this is the confidence that anxiety- ridden me needs when I get to the start line of Boston this year.

I hear I have a little party awaiting me when I cross that finish line on Boylston Street; but more than I want to celebrate that it’s my birthday on Boston race day, I want to ceremonialize conquering those dag-nabbit stinking beasty hills starting in Newton and finishing at the top of Heart Break that broke my spirit last year. I will not let them defeat me this year.

Upward and onward, friends!

Here are a few HILL facts I found:
1. On average people run 23% slower up hill and only 13.8% faster down hill.
2. You can pick up speed if you got better at running downhills.
3. People slow down about 0.082 m/s for every 1% change in gradient.
An interesting point the researchers noted was the “memory effect” of gradients. After an uphill, it took an average of 78 seconds on level ground before runners resumed their normal speeds. After a downhill, runners maintained higher speeds for an average of 23 seconds. The goal should be to distribute effort as evenly as possible. So you might want to go a little slower on the uphills and then focus on resuming your “normal” pace as soon as possible after the hill (precisely the opposite of the way I’ve always raced, I’m sad to say!). And go a little harder on downhills instead of letting yourself recover