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Dark, sore, and uphill both ways

December 3, 2018 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: 38, drizzly

Comments:
I have mixed feeling about calling this 11 miles. Strava says I only did 8.5 miles and a 10:30 pace, which is probably correct, but golly those were some mighty hills. I climbed over 1500 feet. Plus I'm really sore. I think since the purpose of keeping track of my miles is to compare my training to my past training and to compete with other people for bragging rights, I'll go with the "miles earned" - that is, I'm gonna give myself credit for an 8-minute pace if that's the effort I felt I was putting in. Otherwise, I create a perverse incentive to avoid hills. Not that that's an easy thing to do in Sarajevo.

The run started out fine since I was going downhill, but before long I was going up and boy was I sore. I hadn't realized it all day, but maybe I'm not used to these hills after 6 weeks off or training in DC/Boston. I'll get the hang of it soon though. At the very least, I never stop. It's a testament to my love of adventure that even when I'm tired, hungry, and pretty sick of being out on a run I'll still cave into the temptation to try an alternative route home and end up adding on an extra mile and an extra big hill. I suppose if I had someone equally hungry, tired, and fed up running with me I'd just take the shortest route back, but then again, I'm willing to bet there's some of you reading this who have the same stubborn curiosity and would encourage me to get us both thoroughly lost. That's what running buddies are for, ya?