The Hills Are Alive
The other day I went out for a run with a good friend of mine to see how she was progressing as she had been running for a little while now.
As we were stretching to warm up gently before the run began my friend say’s to me, which route shall we go? I said let’s hit the hills today. Her face dropped like an English bulldog. The hills?
The thing is I nearly always like to go up a hill on my runs because I always find that they are the most rewarding runs.
For health benefits hill running burns loads more calories than running flat land. They are also great for breaking the mental barrier mindset of negative thinking.
You need to be in the now right here, not at the hill, we haven’t got there yet.
People can run flat no problem but when you put a nice steep hill in front of them the attitude soon changes if they are not use it running them. But that’s really it, they are not use to running them because half of the time people tend to avoid them. Staying in the good old comfort zone!
I have found training in jujutsu for many years that most of the time it’s the power of mental thinking rather than physical image.
My friend explained to me how she found the hills very hard last time she ran them, and there was this one hill in particular that always got her. The hill must have nearly been thinking, “Oh here she comes again, she hasn’t got a chance!”
First thing I explained was to throw out the past information stuck in her mind about running that certain hill, because you can’t change your past, but my friend, you can change your the future!
We are going to run that hill and you need to start loving the hill.
She looked at me as though I just gone crazy. I replied; you need to love the hill. If you don’t love the hill you will always struggle against it. Don’t fight against it, run up there with enjoyment and tell yourself you love the hill. That’s exactly what I used to do and still do now. Every time I even thought about going out running before I would almost always take the easy route and keep well away from any type of steepness. When I started to love the hills that’s when everything changed and I started to really enjoy hill runs, even though some nearly get the best of me from time to time. But that’s good! That means there’s room for improvement, and I personally love improving and bettering myself.
So we breezed the whole run up towards the hill, as we got closer I said to my friend stay relaxed and pace yourself plus control your breathing patterns. Before you know it, we were at the top of the hill and running our way back to where we originally started.
As you could imagine when we finished she was very pleased with herself and I was pleased for her. It must of felt like a piece of weight off her shoulders. I know it did mine. You need to remember that all of these small things in our life count. Once I started to conquer the hills I used the same approach on all sorts of things in my life from competing to business and I know it has helped others. It is more than just running. It is shape shifting your mind and body.
The question is, what hill are you letting get in your way?
All the best
Richard Huntley
