Ugh. Hills. Double ugh.

That was brutal.

That was insanely hard, frustrating and defeating.

Those hills were horrible.

But I made it 3.5 miles. Some of it was walking. Mostly walking uphill. But it was still 3.5 miles.

I managed to start off relatively slower, and my lungs were fine with the easy pace, but my legs were heavy and tired. I even managed to run most of the way up the very long hill 1. But my lungs were ON FIRE by the time I got to the top and it took forever to recover. By the time I got to the start of hill 2, I wanted to quit. My goal changed to just surviving 3 miles. I decided to walk up part of the hill. It still took forever to recover. Hill 3 almost did me in. By the time I got to the top of the street and turned to go downhill, I was exhausted. I knew I still had to make it home though. I decided to get through the downhill portion and let myself walk again when I got to the street in my neighborhood. Once I got there, walked a minute, and started running again, I felt somewhat better. I ran a tiny bit up the last hill and instead of turning towards home, felt like I could go ahead and run a little more. So my 3.0 turned into 3.5. I felt much better at the end of the run than I did on the hills, but it was still very difficult, and definitely didn't feel great.

I cannot stop wondering what's going to happen next Saturday. These hills were 1/10 of what I'm going to be doing going up Mill Mountain. Everyone keeps telling me I'll be fine, and I'll be ready, and I'll do great, but I can't get my own brain to wrap around those thoughts. All I see is the giant struggle trying to do little hills here and struggling to get through 3.5 miles.

Tomorrow's another rest day, but I can swim if I want. I'll be lucky if I can move or walk tomorrow. I'm definitely going to feel this run.

3.5 miles; 44:20; lots of uphill; 12:43 pace
11:51, 13:11, 12:22, 6:35