Hill climbing

Tonight's run: 10 miles easy on hills, in the valley, with the Tuesday night group, in about 85 minutes. The Rocky River Reservation is a river valley no more than 80 feet deep on the west side of Cleveland's inner ring suburbs. Our route scaled as many of those 80 foot climbs as possible.

Big hills are hard to come by in my part of town. A worthy hill course requires a thirty to forty minute drive to either Hinckley or the Cuyahoga Valley. Rolling and hilly road courses are part of our formula for marathon training, but our local routes rarely tout more than 200 feet of elevation change. Snowville Road in Brecksville changes approximately 450 feet in 2.75 miles. Those are the exceptions. On most days, I run a relatively flat road course from my front door.

In two weeks I tackle Grandfather Mountain in Western North Carolina.



With a starting elevation of 3,333 feet, low point of 3,160 feet and finishing at 4,279 atop Grandfather Mountain, this flat-lander expects to be vertically challenged.