Hills

“What do we love?” “Hills.” “Why do we love them?” “Cause they’re hills!”

The chant from my daughter’s middle school cross-country team echoed in my mind on a recent Thursday on Gayle Mills Drive here in The Villages. The Villages Running Club members old and new ran up the steep hill and jogged back down again; run hard and repeat. Central Florida is not known for its hills, but the earliest runners that formed TVRC decided that Thursdays would be the day to run them and the hilly area near Mallory Hill would be the place to do them!

Competitive runners know that hill workouts are important to maintain muscular strength and speed.  It is tough to run hill repeats. Your legs and lungs both get a workout on the way up and your legs get an even better workout on the way down.

Encouragement is the order of the day on hill day. Teammates who would never see one another on the roads due to different running speeds pass by each other repeatedly on the hills. Runners shout out to one another, “looking fast!” or “running strong!” And our first-class cheerleader, Lisa, yells “diamond to diamond” an encouragement for runners to give it their all as they hit the road markings found on the cart/bike paths.

Lastly, running downhill makes me feel fast again! I am so much quicker when gravity pulls me down the hill. I relax my arms and let my legs spin more quickly. I reach speeds I can never hope to get to on a flat stretch of pavement these days. My inner middle-schooler feels that spark of joy that hard effort on a run brings.

Come join us on a Thursday and see if you find your joy on the hills!