As I mentioned yesterday, my training for the Dumbo Double Dare kept going even on vacation. So, I had two training runs scheduled while I was in San Francisco. Before leaving, I mapped out a route for a little over 3 miles near the hotel where my wife and I stayed. I didn’t have anything that would tell me what kind of hills I would have to run through to complete that route. But, I was pleased to have something.

On Thursday morning, I set out on that route. The first portion was a combination of downhill and flat. So, it was no problem. The elevation started to raise as I got to the third street which slowed me down a little. Then I faced this.

When I got to the top of that is where I took the pic of where I had finished. Then, at the traffic light, looking ahead, I saw this…

And then this…

By the time I got to the top, I saw this…

It made the bay look close enough to try to get to. After all, my time goals, intervals, and everything else seemed to go out the window by that point. So, I thought, “Why not?” Downward I went until I got to the bottom. Running downhill was crazy because of how steep it was. So, I’m not sure how much time I gained by running. By the time I got to the bottom, I felt much better and just started running until I a traffic light stopped me. The good of this was that I ran longer than my 1 minute intervals would allow. That was encouraging.

Once I made it to the bottom, I found myself by the boats in the bay. The America’s Cup was having races during the week. So, everything was set up for those that were in town for that race. There were also lots of runners and cyclists around. I LOVED running here…

See what I mean?

Anyways, I eventually realized my time and headed back. Although, I wished that I could have tried to make it all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge, I knew there were other things going on that day. Climbing back up those hills was brutal. However, at the end of Thursday, I had run 4.50 miles when I originally set out for a little over 3.

On Sunday, I eliminated the portion of the Thursday run that went away from the marina and just went straight there. It was so much fun running there, that I wanted to go further than I did on Thursday. Since I didn’t have that crazy hill in the first 2 miles of running, my time was much better. Here I am at 2 miles…

Bye marina…

On my run from Sunday, I did run a few tenths of a mile on the final hills. However, by the final one, I was done and just walked it. However, I did complete 4.20 miles on Sunday with an average pace that was 2 minutes per mile faster than the day before. After finishing these two runs, I have a lot of respect for those runners who live in San Francisco and run there regularly. It makes the little hill I call a hill in Pasadena seem wimpy by comparison.

Do any of you have hills in your training plans?