Wait, is that a Sherpa?

I’m thinking about getting a boot print tattooed on my butt —  it will make it easier for Dr. Steve when he kicks it.

I had my first hill training session with my new running group last week. Admittedly, I went in with a rather cavalier attitude. The schedule called for six hills and having just come off my marathon training where I regularly did at least 10, I thought, “No problem.”  My mistake. Turns out what I thought was a hill was actually more of a speed bump.

Picture it: 7 p.m. last Thursday, 35 degrees Celsius and we’re headed into the Oakville, Ont. trail system, where Dr. Steve reassures us it’s “almost 3 degrees cooler!” Yipee?  We run about 2K, when all of sudden Dr. Steve stops, throws on his harness and abseils down a cliff. “This my friends,” I can hear him shout as he rapidly descends, “is your first hill.”

OK, so I’m exaggerating a wee bit, but the hills might as well have been 90 degrees. Dr. Steve had us going up and down two of these suckers in a  “bowl” pattern – up one hill, back down, run about 400m, then up another, pass the graffittied rock that says “Edmund Hillary woz here,” back down, repeat. I have never thrown up from working out – I honestly thought last Thursday might have been the night.

Fast forward to Sunday, where 5K into my 18K run, the group decided to toughen me up. The bastards raised the sidewalk up a mighty inch, yours truly wasn’t paying attention, ran right into it, flew through the air Superman-style for a few metres and landed on her face… arm, knee and hands. The result? Gorier than Lindsay Lohan after a night without her alcohol-monitoring bracelet.

The good news is I earned major street cred for running the last 13K with blood running down the entire left hand side of my body. The bad news is I found out that salty sweat and open flesh wounds do not a good combo make. I’m definitely used to wiping out at least once a winter season, but oh man, let’s just say sleeveless shirts and spandex shorts do not provide the kind of padding a clutzy runner needs.  Do they make booty pops with dri-wick?

In other news, I had a total physical yesterday that included a fitness assessment. Compared to last year, my resting heart rate is lower, my flexibility is better, I’m stronger and what’s huge (or actually a lot less huge) is that my body fat is 27%. That may seem high to a lot of you, but I’m told it’s smack in the middle of the “normal” range. I have NEVER been in the normal range for body fat. And, no matter how cut-up my body is,  it has never felt so good to be normal.

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