crazy hills - 6 miler

We decided to take on some crazy hills for our 6 mile training run this morning.  We ran from my parents' house in Irmo, out of their neighborhood onto Lake Murray Blvd.  We ran up and down and up and down some major hills, until we reached the last 1.7mi of our 6 miles, and I can't tell you how thankful I was to reach this point in our run....

1.7 miles of FLAT trail.  It wasn't nearly as clear as this picture today, either.  It was super foggy, which I think was probably a blessing since I couldn't see too far ahead to see what was coming my direction on the hills or see how far was left on the dam.

If today is any indication of how our race day will be, I've got a LOT of work to do to conquer the bridges in Georgetown!    Luckily, every uphill comes with a downhill, and that's definitely something to celebrate.  We actually were pacing faster than most of our short flat runs, so at least we felt accomplished picking up our pace a little despite the difficulty of the uphill parts.

I think all of us were a little unsure of how this run was going to go, and although it's not always fun to wake up super early on a Saturday, we were all happy we did it when we finished.  Also, I have to thank my running buddy Jenny for telling me to keep going several times when we hit hard spots on the hills.  I think she enjoyed turning the tables on me a little bit, since normally I'm the one with the "don't quit, keep moving" mantra.

Also, by the end of our 6 miles... we were truly feeling this quote....

Happy running this week :)