Hills it was. I am six weeks out from my half in November and I want to make sure I am readdddddy for it. When I trained for my first half, I just ran....a lot on flat streets and I was overwhelmed with the four bridges I had to run up and down back in March at the Miami Beach 13.1.

I am following the Hal Hidgons Novice 2 training plan. I run on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and long runs on Saturday. Thurdsays are going to be my "torture Thursdays" alternating between speed work and hills. There are no hills in my neighborhood so I drove down the road a bit and parked at the post office and did a quick warm up.

Today the weather was hot and humid from last night leading right into the morning. My plan was to drop my daughter off at school first; I have to drive her over to the next city, Miami Springs by 8:20 and then double back to Doral to drop my son off at school by 8:35. The traffic was crazy this morning and it was taking twice the amount of time to take my daughter to school. I turned around halfway into my commute to drop my son off first. This may not make sense to most, but my son is autistic ( aspergers) and it would have thrown off his whole morning, possibly his whole day. I dropped him off at school on time and then I doubled back to drop off my princess.....she has no sense of time yet. I get back to my daughter's school by nine and I am sweating from just walking from the car to her classroom. Because of the late start and the extreme heat, I did not think it would be a good idea to do speed work.....so hills seemed like the lesser of the two evils.

I went through my setup; turn on my Garmin and wait for it to boot up, check. Strap on my Nano (my husband found a band to make it fit like a watch), check. Lock up the car, check. And get in a warm up run. Crap, I forgot my visor. I sweat a lot and running without my visor or a hand towel is NOT an option. Time is ticking and it is getting hotter by the minute. Finally I am all set to go by 9:45. There were passing showers that I thought I was going to get a chance of running in....no such luck. I started off in a slow and comfortable jog. Today was only a three mile jog. I went over the first bridge around half a mile into my run. Wow, it is such a different feeling to jog over a bridge that you speed up and down on effortlessly in your car. There are lots of sights to take in as I am jogging along to my music taking it all in while I focus on getting my breathing under control running down the bridge. I am also keeping an eye on my Garmin to keep track of how far I need to run before I have to turn around and double back over the bridge. It is tough for me to run by myself sometimes so I am happy when I see another walker or jogger to focus on and keep me moving in this hot and uncomfortable weather. Since my half is in November, I want to make sure I am prepared to run in the heat. I am still hoping that it is not too hot though.

My goal for today's run was to run at a pace where I felt comfortable jogging and not over do it that I need to walk. Once I made it to my halfway point, I was starting to feel that I could. Thank goodness I did not have to stare at the bridge the whole way on my way back. Yay, I saw someone walking ahead of me. I had my focal point to keep me moving up the bridge. I passed a young woman on top of the bridge and now I knew I was going to make it without stopping. Cruising down the bridge into the home stretch, I kept to the right and I hopped at least two feet off the ground when a guy on a bike honked his horn behind me. I'm glad I could provide comedy for his commute.

Whew, I did it. I completed my first session of hills, city style and it felt good. I am going to attempt one of my long runs with hills near the end of the month. Fort Lauderdale 13.1, oh yeah, I am going to be ready for you!