was going to run yesterday evening, but...

I guess my jog/walks to/from work were enough! Instead I recharged for today. I owed the dog a significant outing or adventure of some sort: due to the rainy weather this week and my lack of energy and my husband being swamped with work, the dog hasn't been getting much daily exercise. :( I

We got out of the door at about 8 am and jogged down the back lane and then down on 5th. My original plan was to run the 8ish mile loop with the large hill, but when it came time to turn right at the bottom, the grass on the other side looked so green. This is the truth. After a week of solid rain, the faded straw colours have turned into bright greens and purples and yellows and other eye-searing vibrant stuff. The humidity has risen too, and I suppose I'm in for a steamy summer because I'm about to sit and study in shorts and a tshirt on the back deck, and it's March, but hopefully I will be able to enjoy the heat again. Meanwhile, my head is swayed somewhat by all this green, and so we kept running. The road curved more than I'd noticed and instead of turning right to go west, we turned right to continue going south, and eventually we got to a road I recognized.

This part was far out enough that sidewalks were intermittent; we had a few lovely strolls across lawns and fields. The ground was still too damp for running, and the dog appreciated the smells anyway. There was one smell which I caught: this road is enough of a highway to have fast food, and I caught a whiff of it, a delectable combo of saturated fat and salt which triggered all sorts of cravings. The smell is well engineered to do this, and I reminded myself that the food itself is calorific, for sure, but otherwise lacking what I need and truly want. The smell is so persuasive, though! I couldn't even tell where it was coming from; I passed a gas station and a Walmart as well as a minor league grocery store, but no fast food joints. Does McD or BK or whatever emit a beacon for miles? It eventually faded and we got to 20th, and we ran up the hill.

It was easier this time even though we had a longer run up to it. I was worried that the larger loop would result in a larger incline; fortunately, though there was more up and down, there wasn't a greater drop for the large hill. I'd already started at the lowest point before the big climb. This time, I tried to run with short quick strides, feeling a kind of gear like efficiency about my hips, and that helped, as well as being more familiar with the hill, especially the false summit. It's not really a super big hill, about 200 ft of elevation in 0.9 of a mile, but it's got a particularly steep section that I was unprepared for last time. I'm not sure I'll ever get comfortable with it, but the next step will be to run it in the opposite direction, from a lower drop about 275 ft below the summit, I think.

Gradually, this thing will shrink, hopefully! I guess I'm lucky--at home, I'd have to go a ways into the Gatineaus to get the same elevation change, and I don't know I'd be able to find it in one short stretch.

Now I'm thinking of other hills I've been on, mainly the surprisingly steep ones in Seoul (the large one close to one of my apts went up about 700 ft in little over a mile, and there were plenty of higher hills--my calves were rock solid during my time in Korea!), and the massive ones in Colorado. Surely these puny little ones here shouldn't be such a trial! Guess I got soft.

total: 11.75 miles.