3 Things Thursday

This is easy...HEAT, HUMIDITY, and HILLS!! Tonight Matt and I took the dogs for a 3.85-ish mile jaunt and this pretty much sums up what we experienced. The heat and humidity are pretty much to be expected more months out of the year than not and I am pretty sure I have mentioned (complained about) the hills in our neighborhood on more than one occasion.

We are very fortunate that our neighborhood is quite expansive and that we can go many different routes and can vary the distance pretty easily as well so as to avoid boredom. Tonight we explored a new (to us) area and came across a HILL that almost broke me (and Roxy!) We had been running off and on up until this point and were pretty tired...I saw this hill and all bets were off. I wish I had my camera but for now just try to imagine a .25 mile hill with 130 feet in elevation gain (according to gmap pedometer). It just seemed to go.on.FOREVER. We have several steeper hills than this in the 'hood and a lot of gradual climb, but nothing that I have encountered like that. We were rewarded with a gorgeous view of the golf course and a definite new route add-on. Forever to be known as the "Swiss Road" route, we will get stronger by training on this beast!

I was actually supposed to do a 4.5 miler on the 'mill tonight but I couldn't stomach the thought of going to the gym and am really glad I did this kick ass workout with Matt instead even if it was a shorter distance. Even when I'm not in the mood to run, I am so grateful that I CAN run and that I have been running fairly injury free. It's bothering me a little bit that I haven't nailed down or committed to any sort of training goal for fall, but for now I am going to continue to enjoy "no pressure" training and maintaining my base and having fun over the summer.