Running up big hills

I seem to still be finding peace and joy running up hills because I had a great run today.

I fiddled around with a new hill route (turn on the elevation feature to see a profile of what I did).  I found it more challenging than the other route.  The newer route is longer by about half a mile and has two more "up hill" sections than the original route (although the last two are minuscule compared to the first two hills).  The down side of this route is that there's no mile long awesome descent like the original.  I'll have to modify it a little because there should be a point when I just get to run all out down a big hill for a long time.  (Of course there should.)

Marathon training is paying off because even though I knew mentally that the new route was harder, I had a blast running it.  For the first time in my life I got a walk light at Edgecumb coming up the really big hill.  Since I didn't have to wait, I got no breather half way up.  It was also the first time in my life that I ran to Edgecumb without stopping for a short walk.  Actually, I ran up all the hills without stopping. (What is wrong with me?)

When I got back to the office, I thought my iPod told me a time that sounded about right.  When I plugged my iPod in and looked online at the workout it said a time that was about six minutes faster than I thought.  I'm sorry, you thought I ran that how fast now?  Although I didn't get caught at Edgecumb on the way up the big hill, I did get caught at several lights, especially trying to get across Ford Parkway, Snelling and Randolph.  So I was shocked when I calculated my pace.  How fast?  Really?  You know that was up hill right?

My plan for training for now is to leave work early, run hills on Thursday afternoons, and then take the laptop home to make up whatever time I missed.  It worked well in the spring when I was training for the Pig so I'll give it a try again.  I can't wait to do this again next week.