Up Up and Away Away

RUNNING HILLS

Is not fun.

I was driving through my new neighborhood the other day and noticed that there was a giant, and I'm assuming shut down, steel plant about a mile from my house. Across the street from this plant was a giant vacant lot, with a huge mound of dirt sitting in it. Perfect.

This mound or hill, or whatever it is, is in the north side of Columbus, at the intersection of Grant and 5th Ave. It's in a run down neighborhood, no surprise considering its proximity to a busted factory. I ran there, which is about a mile, not knowing if I could park near it. Next time I'll likely drive and park somewhere. I'm not as much worried about running through a crappy neighborhood as I am of being worn down by the noontime summer heat.

The hill is trapezoidal. I would guess that its about 50 feet tall, or somewhere around there, with a 30 yard plateau. I'm not going to guess the grade of the incline on either side, but the southernmost side is steeper. When I say the hill is trapezoidal, I mean it. The North and South sides have runnable slopes, but the East and West sides are basically cliffs. They seem to be composed of dirt for 90% of the way, but the top 10-20% of the sides are basically loose shale. If I were to try and run the East and West ends I'd basically end up cut up, broken, and tumbling down the mound.

I ran up and down the South end to start, which is the worn dirt path on the right side of the above picture. I ran up, down, up, and down again for 1 set. I did that 5 times.

Then I decided to run up the South side, across the plateau, down the North, and then up the North, across the plateau, and down the South. I did that 5 times.

That was plenty. I felt like garbage going into it, as the GHR the other day has left my hams in ruins. Also, running to the hill in 90 degree heat is a dumb idea. I can get warm enough by stretching outside. No need to tire myself before I'm doing the real work.

I jogged/walked back home afterwards. Not a bad day.

The view from the top:

614

Random story. I'm probably not supposed to be using this hill. It's likely owned by the steel company, and the surrounding lot may be used for parking construction equipment. Anyway, as soon as I got there and climbed to the top to assess everything I saw a cop car coming down the street towards the hill. When I got to the bottom, though, I had yet to see it pass the hill, so I turned and looked up the street. The cop had parked in an empty lot caddy corner to me, with his car facing me. I figured that if he had a problem with me being there, he could just say something. I've been yelled at before, and the worst he could do would be to tell me to leave. Big deal.

The weird thing was that he sat in that spot the entire time I was running, 30 minutes or so. The moment I grabbed my bag, threw on my shirt, and started my way home, though, he pulled out of his spot and flew past me. Made no sense. Maybe he was a perv. Or the fitness police.