More Hills Coach

My husband loves to tell this story from high school football when the coach would have the guys run hills and then make them beg for more. Apparently the team literally had to say, "More Hills Coach" before starting up again. I find this oddly funny and have to wonder if it helped anything to tire these guys out on hills when their 1989-1993 record was 5-21. Perhaps, coach, less hills would have been a better option.

Yet, as I grow as a runner, I am learning that hill repeats are a common and recommended drill for improving speed and endurance. After avoiding this portion of training for two years, I decided it was time to suck it up and start taking this advice seriously. Really, when you consider hills, the metaphor to life is almost so obvious it's cheesy. I mean, Miley Cyrus actually has a song about it. Of course you Miley fans already know, it's not what's waiting on the other side, it's the climb, right? Uh-huh.

Like many of you, I have a few favorite routes that I use for my workouts. For years now, I have been walking up the Thorn Street Hill, also known as the "college hill" where every Ripon child has had the pleasure of sledding down at full speed only to get a solid spray of snow to the face at the bottom. The very brave would start at the top, near the dorms where there is a double jump, guaranteed to give supreme air and a possible tailbone fracture if the snow is packed too hard.

I have loathed that hill but forced myself to walk up it hundreds of times. I never dared to allow myself to think I could ever run up that sucker, until two years ago. Riding high on the success and cockiness of a completed quarter marathon, I entered the Ripon Doug Lyke Memorial 5k. My sister and I looked around at the competition, hoping to see some folks we thought we could beat. The whole high school cross country team was there. And a 55 year old man in a camoflage sweatband. We were in trouble.

The route included the college hill and I felt ready. I had something to prove, running with my sister for the first time in our lives, and my goal was to finish without walking, hill and all. We didn't make it. We started out too fast, trying to keep pace with the high schoolers at first and then just trying not to make total fools of ourselves. We had to stop half way up the hill and walk. My disappointment was only hidden by the near death experience of the actual attempt to run up the hill. They held that race twice that summer. I put off entering the second time until the night of the race, then entered just for fun, and walked up the stupid hill once again.

It's been my nemesis for almost two years. I run miles and miles but never up that hill. I walk up to the top or avoid it all together. But in the back of my mind, I have always known that I must conquer it. I spent the whole winter in preparation, running incline intervals on my treadmill until I nearly fell off. And when I tackled that hill a few weeks ago, I ran up it as if it was a flat country road, feeling like I won a million dollars at the top.

But that's not enough. Oh no. Things have to get a little crazy now. Perhaps the hill is taunting me. Perhaps it is daring me to try again. "You can't do it twice", it shouts from across town. And that's when this hill gets symbolic of all the things I thought I couldn't do. I laced up my running shoes (still New Balance by the way), and cranked up my ipod (still Flo Rida by the way). I headed over to the hill with a bit of swagger, refusing to let even a gusting wind stand in my way.

The first time up the hill, I thought of 2008, when I walked and walked, taking on that hill at a snail's pace. I passed the college boys soccer team and remembered when my roommates and I at Marian College would roller blade past soccer practice and hope to be noticed. It felt good. Round 2: This one was for 2009, twice trying and failing to run up that damned hill. I had to ask the soccer boys to move over as I ran past them. But that's not enough. Third time up the hill was for my shopping trip yesterday. I got jeans two sizes smaller than I wore last fall and I better make it up this hill again if I think I'm going to keep wearing them. But, hell no, that's not enough! One more time, FOUR TIMES, running up that hill, just to prove I could. Just to show those college kids I still have something in me. One of the boys even waved at me the fourth time around. I dared him to join me and I think I frightened him.

So when the doubt creeps into my mind, as it surely will continue to do from time to time, the only thing I can do to prove to myself how far I've come is to scream in my own ears "MORE HILLS COACH". And this time I get it. The hill has made me stronger, given me confidence, and taught me that there will always be bigger and better challenges ahead of me.

Find your own hill. I don't care how tall it is. I don't care if you have to walk or crawl up it. I just want you to take it on. It's going to hurt. You will hate it, and me for that matter. But don't let that stop you. Someday, you will run up that hill four times and you can shout out to all the soccer boys in the land. And it won't even matter if they aren't there to hear you. YOU will be there and that is all that really matters.