January 30th

Scheduled Miles: 8
Mile Ran: 8.44
Total Time: 1:02:40
Current Weight: 174
Current Condition: A bit queasy

I never really thought of Owings Mills as a particularly hilly area. Sure, we've got your average up and downs and a few big hills but nothing that seemed that out of the ordinary. The only thing that really stands out is a hill on Pleasant Hill Rd that I have run up, but try to avoid. It's steep, long and doesn't have a shoulder or sidewalk making it not only hard but a bit dangerous. I do, however, run down it quite frequently over the summers when the days are longer and I can hit it while the earth is still bathing in sunlight.

Now, thanks to my handy dandy little GPS watch, which measures ascent and decent for the length of my run, I've become acutely aware that I'm training in the marathoning equivalent of the Himalayas. Take my run tonight for example. My total ascent for an eight mile run was 598 ft. To give you some perspective, and I might have mentioned this a while ago when talking about preparations for my run last year, the Marine Corp marathon - considered about average in terms of difficulty - has a total ascent of 485 ft, roughly. Those ascents come in the form of two hills at the beginning, the first a long, ambling trudge and the second an energy sapping vertical that puts the fear of God into more than a few of the participants. There's also a small hill at the end of the race up to the turn around and then finally to the finish line. The hill to the turn around couldn't have been more than 50 ft, but for my money it was by far the hardest of the race.

So to summarize, in 26.2 miles I ascended a total of 485 vertical feet and tonight in 8.4 miles I climbed 598 vertical feet. If you ran the course I took tonight for 26.2 you would have ascended approximately 1,865 ft. That's over half way up Maryland's tallest mountain, Backbone Mountain, which sits at 3,360 ft above sea level.

I guess what I'm saying is that Owings Mills apparently brings the hills like the Duke Blue Devils bring the suck. And that's a lot of suck my friends. As long as I can keep close to my goal pace on the mid-distance runs, I think I've got a good shot at qualifying in Fredrick. Fredrick, among the easier of the local marathons, is mostly flat with a few rolling hills. Sounds like easy pickings.