Hills

n. 1) a natural elevation of the earth's surface, smaller than a mountain; an incline, 

especially in a road 

Hills are also known as the bane of many runners' existence. Certainly the bane of a new runners' training regimen. 

When I decided to go out for cross country in high school, I wasn't really looking for anything strenuous. I played hockey outside of the school system and a friend suggested we try out. I think he had his eye on a girl. I figured why not. It's just running (how hard can it be). And better yet, it was running in the woods, which in my mind put me way ahead of the curve since hiking with the family and running in the woods was a huge part of my childhood. 

To say I was wrong would be an enormous understatement. 

Cross country track turned out to be little more than a slog of endless miles in shitty weather capped by weekly runs on trail courses where I had the distinction of finishing dead last in nearly every race. I sucked at track. 

I'd love to say that even though I was terrible at track, I truly found joy and freedom in running for its own sake. 

Nope. Not that either. I hated track. And it got worse when cross country ended and winter track started and races were indoors, doing endless laps around a track in a gym. And I hated it the following year when, for some indecipherable reason I signed up again. 

Looking back, I honestly do not know how I lasted three years of running track with how bad at it I was and how much I disliked it. And it's even further beyond my ken why I ever came back to it. It may have something to do with the fact that I grew up in Hopkinton, Mass. (in case you're not a runner or otherwise familiar with the geography of New England, my hometown's claim to fame is the start of the grail of distance running - the Boston Marathon) and then proceeded to spend another ten years in Boston proper. 

I suspect it has more to do with the moments of peace I found when I finally let go of the misery and drudgery of one foot in front of the other mile after mile long enough to fall into a rhythm and a sort of oneness with the surroundings. I distinctly remember a series of god-awful runs that remain in my memory the pinnacle of my high school running career involving a solo trek, a cemetery and snow and freezing rain. In sweats. 

And the hills. 

At the time that I started running with any manner of structure, the words "hill day" were as dreaded as the phrase "pop quiz". More, probably. For someone with a slow gait, shuffling pace and gasping sports-induced asthma (not to mention the beginning of a very unhealthy smoking habit, hills were the absolute worst. Torture. Running sprints up hills, jogging back down and sprinting back up, over and over. And in some cases, the workout was just miles of up and down alternately rolling and steep hills. They were miserable. 

I suppose it's funny that now, more than two decades later, I see hills not as misery, but look forward to them. As I'm building endurance and mileage, I feel stronger with every foot of elevation and find things fall away as I climb. 

I'm coming to appreciate that running is as much a mind game as a physical one. The challenge isn't in the personal record or the time trial or the race. The challenge is in getting out there in the first place. It's in continuing to get up and run, even when the weather is terrible and you don't feel like it and you're sore. It's in those first steps up the hill. 

An appropos metaphor? I think so.