Journal Excerpts, Hill Edition

(Each of the lines/mini paragraphs that follows is a separate, out-of-context passage from my own journal I’ve kept over the years. The first ones start in 2009 and feature a clear hatred of running/biking up hills, and the passages jump and progress through time – and my view on hills – up to the beginning of 2020, since I’ve been terrible at journaling since then.)

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Hills are also the devil. 

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I heard they ran up hills and sh*t. I hate running.

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I kind of failed once I reached the hill by the main entrance. I got started again after that but my shins and ankles wanted to break into little pieces. 

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So I could just turn around somewhere down there and go back the other way to avoid the same obnoxious hills. 

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Then I ran the rest, which was one last hill up to the terraces, and then I was dead for like a half an hour.

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There is this hidden hill, but it’s ridiculously steep…when you’re sprinting up that, it gets incredibly long. My ankles were trying to fall off, and underarmour was not my best decision.

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I made it up that annoying hill by the main entrance, though. 

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Then we came out on Coddington and had to RUN THE F*CK UP A HUGE ASS HILL THAT NEVER ENDED. I didn’t make it up all the way.

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Then I rode up the stupid hill while standing and pedaling, and it was death and my legs and butt hurt for the rest of the day.

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I went on a really sh*tty run this morning. Well, it was okay except I randomly died after the hills.

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The hills aren’t so bad anymore, and I generally don’t want to stop and die. It’s a nice feeling. 

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Then I went behind all the athletic buildings and found the steepest hill I have ever seen in my life. I almost peed myself. Then I ran up it.

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I got an e-mail from the race director with lots of details about the race, and in the run section he wrote, “The hill you run down at the start of the run will be waiting for you when you come back.” Real encouraging.

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Then I hit mile 4 and the hills started. Oh my God. Steepest and longest hills of my life. I made it up all of them, but it was death.

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I still hate hills. But it was so much worse than the race, so I’m giving myself perspective for whenever I have to go up smaller hills.

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There are no hills here and that is actually a bad thing. They make you stronger and they’re harder and I would actually like to find some, or at least some staircases.

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My ankles are super pissed at me, I need to roll my calves desperately, and I miss hills. 

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Nothing gets your heart rate up like hills do. Except maybe sprinting fartlek in cemeteries.

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I wish I lived up there because there are so many hills.

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I said hello and he was talking to me while riding all casually and I was dying trying to get up a hill. 

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I question my own sanity when I willingly sign up for a race for which the bike description reads, “There will be a screaming downhill at the start and a rather painful uphill at the end.” 

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I need to run up hills more. 

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You know it’s bad when you’re thinking about potentially being in Ithaca again and then you relax and think, “Oh my God, I can run up that giant hill again.”

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There’s a long hill at the beginning, because as the website says, “The only way out of Lake George is up.”

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I planned a route for myself tomorrow that includes every monster hill known to man in the town of Durham. I am going to die.

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At one point he informed me at the top of a hill, “You know, that was the last hill until the next one.”

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You know you’re a runner when you literally sigh hugely in a massive wave of relief when you find out a 10-mile run up and down hills will indeed be taking place while you’ll be in the area. 

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I hit every hill in the history of hills in East Bumf*ck, CT, and by hill I mean mountain. 

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I thought I knew what it felt like to think I wasn’t going to make it up a hill. No. That was Archer. 

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There was this awful out and back where you go down a hill for like 5 miles, all the while watching people struggle back up the hill, then you become those people. 

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I stopped at mile 5, before going back up the hill for the first time, after like six other hills that I walked/ran/died up. 

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I ran the entire final hill, past the official cameraman who was obnoxiously taking pictures of everyone dying up the hill.

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Slow as sh*t, but I was picking it up and passing some people and moving along and hammering the hills.

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There was this one really long hill at like mile 25 where I just powered past everyone. 

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Not only did I keep up with the group, I passed everyone on the big hills.

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I ran hills today and they were delightful.

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Oh, that was the weekend I ran 8 miles up and down two different monster hills. It was completely insane. 

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But that passed, and soon it was all outdoor rides, all over Woodbridge and Seymour and Oxford and there are some wonderful, wonderful hills.

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Then I came back up a different long road, and I turned this one corner and there was a GIANT F*CKING HILL. It was so beautiful. 

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Nice, a substantial hill. I can run up this thing tomorrow.