Mainely Hills Running
Sheri Bedford
As you know, fellow runners, I usually spend a good portion of the year in northern Maine where the summers are cool, rainy, foggy with the occasional break for sun.
Races are challenging. Age groups encompass a decade; weather is no reason to cancel…and there are hills.
The Belfast 5k race for the National
Theater of the Handicapped on May 19, 2001, was typical. I’m not used to hills. I don’t especially like them. Usually a course has more uphills than down.
Belfast is a
charming coastal town midway between Camden and Bangor. The harbor is a deep triangle cut into the coast.
I looked around the hallway as runners leaned over the registration
table and saw a familiar face from the track workouts of the previous summer.
I was worried.
"Is this course
hilly?" I asked Elise. Tall and graceful, she was speedy on the track and had just come into my age group.
She wasn’t worried. She ran in Maine all the time.
"No, pretty flat…In fact I can’t think of any hills," she said. "I usually have a pretty good time for this race because it is so flat."
That was encouraging news. I needed it.
The weather certainly wasn’t offering any gifts: high 40’s and raining.
All 75 registered runners hunched under the grand arch of the National Theater entrance reluctant to go out to the starting line. We clung to the last wisp of the warmth from the heated interior, not at
all eager to begin the cold wet race.
The starter waved his gun and tried to coax us out of the shelter.
"Time to
start the race, folks. Come on now."
Still huddling together, we moved in a clump to a bouquet of colored umbrellas offered to us by bystanders. No way were we just going
to stand in the drizzle and get soaked.
"Oh come now." The starter had a slight edge to his voice. It was eight o’clock, though from the gray pallor of the day one
would have guessed it was seven.
We dragged ourselves from the comfort of the umbrellas, shedding outer garments in little heaps as we hunched to the starting line.
I breathed a slight sigh of relief.
At least the start was a downhill into the center of town. But then I noticed the other side of the
intersection. A hill. Uh oh.
We bounded down through the first town intersection and took the first uphill in a group. It separated the serious runners from the recreational.
I managed to maintain a spot somewhere between the two groups.
As I climbed the first 45 degree slant, I was wondering just what Elise did
call a hill. For me, the flat-lander from Florida, each slope definitely constituted what I would call a serious hill.
I was trying to keep up with a redheaded
13-year-old who had run the socks off of me in the last 5k. She seemed to float a constant distance of ten yards in front of me like a pint-sized carrot-top mirage.
Elise was
behind me. Somewhere.
I had taken off in my typical jack-rabbit style hoping to use the combination of the initial downward slope and my adrenaline rush to offset my
inevitable slowing at the end of the race.
I felt strong…but soaked. The rain was slapping at my face and only the warmth generated from exercise was keeping me from
shivering.
The carrot-top drifted nearer on the next rise. Was I catching her?
I pumped my arms and shortened my stride
to take on Elise’s reportedly "non-existent" hill. I wasn’t huffing yet. That was a good sign.
The carrot top must have been stressed. I passed her without too
much trouble at the stoplight. We turned a severe right. And started another ascent.
The black-slickered volunteer at the corner said, " Halfway through now. Lookin’
strong!"
The cold and rain was keeping me alert. I felt fast.
I heard breathing behind me.
Rats.
Elise pulled up alongside as we crested the hill and lengthened our stride on a short flat stretch.
I breathed to keep up with her. I sang my mental running song in my head to make my feet go faster, but eventually she gracefully slid away from and descended the final hill.
The downhill finish allowed us all to look fit and speedy as we crossed the line. Elise clocked a 21:33, and I had a 21:55. The redheaded youngster had a bad day and finished much later.
After warming and recovering in the chintz-comfy lobby, with four slices of homemade raisin bread and a cup of hot tea, I said to Elise, " So you don’t consider those up-and-down things we ran
hills?"
"It’s the flattest course between Bangor and Portland," she smiled. "On the Bucksport 10-miler around Silver Lake there are slants that make
these look like bumps."
I had run that race last year. It was true. It was one hilly race that I wasn’t going to attempt this summer. Cold wet and slanted, these
Belfast hills had been plenty of challenge for me and a good start to a summer of many Mainely hill runs.
I sighed and settled back in the auditorium of the National Theater
for the Handicapped to watch Elise receive a Maine seafood cookbook as her first-in-age-group award.
Sheri Bedford © 2001
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