Hill Time!

Since Janet and I have signed up for the Lake of the Woods 5 k, I decided that it's time to get serious about trying to get in shape, so hopefully I'll be a little bit more diligent with posts in my blog.  Check back every couple of days...I should have new stuff on here (since the only time I manage to blog is when I'm trying to run).

My daughter Laurie and I ran the race two years ago, and the freakin' thing almost killed me.  There are two options in the race...you can do a 5 k, or for people who are actually RUNNERS there is a 15 k route that goes completely around the lake.  You're running at an elevation of 5000 feet for the majority of the race, and they've sprinkled it with a liberal addition of hills.  Even though they aren't exceptionally long and you don't gain much elevation, for some reason there seem to be a cajillion of them, and the race practically killed me.  

Because of my miserable experience on our last venture, I decided that the best way to try to get ready was to leave my comfortable route on the flat OC&E Trail and do some hills.  Today after church I  threw on my running stuff and headed out to OIT to do a 3 mile run that I mapped out about 10 years ago.

The run is actually pretty fun.  It starts out with a downhill for a little less than half a mile, and then you have a pretty decent uphill for about half a mile.  You do a quick turn around in the parking lot of New Corporation, and run back down the hill to Dan O'Brian Way.  There are a couple of long hills that you get to tackle, but there is minimal traffic and the shoulder is about 4 feet wide so cars aren't an issue.  You also don't have to deal with any of the fair weather folk who seem to frequent the OC&E Trail anytime the sun shows its face.  That means that you don't have to deal with dogs, old people walking 4 abreast who can't hear you coming and seem irritated when you pass them.  

All in all, the run is a pretty good one.  According to Google Earth it's exactly 3.1 miles, which lets me check my progress on reaching my time goal for Lake of the Woods.  Although it's about 900 feet lower than the elevation at which we'll be running in June, it's hilly enough to be fairly challenging.  

Tomorrow I won't get to run (have to build a gate for my horses to move from one pasture to another), but I plan on running OIT at least once per week.  There are some other out and backs I can add to the run to get in more mileage and some more hills, so by the time June 2nd gets here hopefully I'll be in shape enough that the eleveation and little hills at Lake of the Woods won't be so brutal.