Elevated

I decided one day last week to finally look at the course map and elevation chart for the Springfoot Half Marathon that I'm training for (four more weeks. Is it too early to panic?) and my hopes for a flat half were dashed. Good news: there's only one serious hill. Okay news: it's right in the middle. Bad news: I have to abandon my attempts to find the flattest stretches of Cincinnati available to run on.

I went downtown and crossed the river one day last week.
Yes, my weekday runs are long enough to run to
Kentucky now.

I live on top of a hill, so all of my runs start off downhill and finish uphill, no matter which direction I go. But for the middle miles, I have a few options--although running in the dark in a city I still don't know that well means that most of the options are varying degrees of scary. I've heard, "You went running where?" so many times that I'm starting to think no one feels safe anywhere in this city, ever, despite the fact that I see plenty of other runners out every direction that I go. (Non-runners. They don't speak my language.)

Anyway! All those hills paid off yesterday, though, when I managed a 10-miler at a slightly faster pace than any of my other runs last week. It was flattish in the middle, which I didn't do on purpose but really enjoyed once I got past the long downhill and slightly less long uphill that I started with. As they say, hills are speedwork in disguise.

Today starts a new training week! And then another, and another, and another... and then race day will be here.