Heading for the hills!

Last night I decided to try a new route to Untergrombach, a town about 7K/4.3M away that borders one of the higher hills in the area. The route to Untergrombach is mostly asphalt bike paths and half of it parallels a busy county highway (e.g. loud). I have generally avoided running this way because I don’t like the busy traffic that occurs during the time that I usually run. However in an effort to find a new running route with some hills I decided to try it again. The first 20 minutes wasn’t too bad, but then I hit the 3-4K section that follows the highway. It was so loud from traffic that I had to turn up my MP3 player! I suffered through it, including having to dodge about 8-10 cyclist and a dog walker who thought they owned the path. I finally reached the church in the middle of town that is the trailhead for the long climb up onto the mountain. I had planned on just running to this point and turning around and going back. But there I was staring up toward the mountain and I just did what any runner would do, I started climbing :-)

Ignoring the fact that I just ran a marathon the weekend before, I climbed from around 110 meters (360 feet) elevation to around 264 meters (866 feet) over roughly a mile distance. The run upwards included at least three quad busting sections that would leave most pedestrians panting. Although the climb was steeper than I am accustomed to on my normally hilly long run route, I was motivated and kept up a steady hilly climbing pace. As I popped onto the top of the ‘mountain’ I received a couple strange looks from a couple dog walkers who had obviously driven up the mountain. I did a loop around the small chapel and restaurant and started home again. The run down was quite enjoyable after the climb and the good feeling carried me back home. I ran for 1:50:00, around 18K/11M according to Google Earth.

This morning my quads were toast, and my wife had absolutely no sympathy whatsoever, her only words being “Aren’t you supposed to be recovering from a race?”. My only regret is that I didn’t bring my camera with me – I guess I’ll have to run up the hill again next weekend ;-)