the hills

Our new neighborhood is quite the hilly neighborhood. When I first realized what this would mean to my morning runs, I panicked a little bit. I was not used to running many hills. But unless I wanted to drive somewhere to run, I was not going to be able to avoid having to run some pretty gnarly hills.

So over the past few months I have been running those hills. And have developed quite the love/hate relationship with them. Hate, because they are hard. And sometimes when I am lying in bed in the morning, willing myself to get up and get my running clothes on, I envision those hills and try to come up with every excuse to stay in bed.

But one morning as I was out on my run, ready to tackle that hill, I felt a little exhilaration and had the thought “let’s see what you’re made of” as I started my climb. Our bodies are amazing things. I am amazed at what they can accomplish. Somehow, when I think it is not possible, it just keeps push pushing forward, …it’s my mind that usually tells me that I am tired and need to stop. But as I push up that hill, my legs start to feel so fatigued and I feel certain they will never make it to the top, and certainly not recover enough to finish my run. I find I need to focus on what is right in front of me, and not at the top of the hill, or I start feeling like I want to give up. So I focus right in front and just keep pushing, ignoring my struggle for oxygen and my legs that feel like rubber, and just push right through it. And then before I know it, I reach the top, out of breath, ready to collapse, and then start the decline. And all of a sudden, I not only feel recovered, but feel new strength like I could keep running for miles.

And so, of course, this got me thinking about life. My life, and so many friends who are just struggling right now. We all have our hills. Some may just be small rolling hills, and some may be soaring mountains. And sometimes we are climbing a hill we think we can never reach the top of. We are beaten down and tired and surely can never recover. But we are interesting beings, aren’t we? Capable of more than we give ourselves credit for. And sometimes we need to focus on just today, and not how far we need to get. And those trials sure let us see what we are really made of. And once we get in the downhill swing of life, we recover in a way we didn’t know possible. And the good feels even better because we had to experience the hard.

And I will tell you what, I am a faster and better runner on these hills than I ever was running on flat.