eating hill

Look! Another day on the trainer.... because I won't publish pictures of hill bounding......

At the top of the hill on my last hill repeat there were tears coming from my eyes. For the first time in a very long time I can feel it coming back. Not the athlete I used to be but the one I know I am becoming.

We began this hill repeat set last week. Last week was four times up the hill, bounding up, zipping down. After #3 2 X 15 sec wind sprints (ha!) Negative split each and every one. This week FIVE with the direct instruction to negative split each one. Today was the first day ever that I felt like a runner. I even traded in my running skirt for running shorts, not even a visor of a fuel belt. Instead I went old school, for the warm up to the hill I ran with a 24 oz water bottle to park at the bottom of the hill.

Seemed like everyone was out. The folks gardening form last week, a British man and his wife were walking in circles (a circular path around the side streets) and the nursery school kids were out. Welcome to the freak show, I thought. The freak being me. I could just imagine what these people were thinking.....

• who is that busty chick running up the hill?
• honey.... there's that strange woman again running up and down this hill.....
• wonder how many she will do today?

I was just hoping no one would

A. Take my water bottle

B. Pee on it.

#1: I hit the first one in 1:26. Feeling pretty good. Bounding to all hell with perfect form..... just because to the audience it looked cool.

#2: 1:25. Okay, a little progress. The problem with progress is that the faster the repeat the higher the bar.

#3: 1:20. Wowser, it's like hitting 20 min for a 5K. right on the bubble! The 2 X 15 sec wind sprints...... let's just say you thought I looked good during the hills!

#4: 1:20 Again? I wonder if I will die on the last one. I am determined not to.

#5: 1:18. Eighteen? Yes, eighteen. If it had said 19 I would have wondered. But I smiled, as I stopped for a moment.

It wasn't like I had something left in the tank after my bike intervals this morning. It was that I had dug deeper. Inside of me. To that place where you are sometimes afraid to go to.

That place of I might blow up, throw up, or die. I might die right here. In front of this crowd of people wondering what the hell is going on. But even though the chances are higher that I will throw up..... there is chance I might not. There is a chance I will negative split. There is a chance I will make it. I made it. I smiled.

I was a god forsaken sweaty mess. I had my hair cut last night and there was hair mouse running into my eyes again, after I had just spent 1:40 with it dripping down my face. I was soaked. I was stumbling, but I was five hill repeats stronger than I was 75 minutes earlier.

As I ran down the hill for the final time, the couple who was out gardening waved again. "See you next week!" They said. I smiled and waved back. Damn straight you will.

Then I remembered..... next week is camp in Lake Placid. When I left Placid in 2008 I could barely utter my own name, I had a grade 3 concussion. It was a rough day on what was supposed to be my fifth and final Ironman.

Coach set the stage for what he believes I could do in Lake Placid. It caught my eye.

Will I sign up for 2010? Ask me next week when I crest the hill that descends to Main Street and gives me my first view of Mirror Lake. I will answer that question then.