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Just because the hills here aren’t big, doesn’t mean I find them easy to run. What’s worse, though, is that, as a runner, you adapt to your surroundings. And, here, I do feel the need to apologize. I write all this because, when I say my park has “terrain,” I mean it has something like what passes as a hill in my area. The ones I’m thinking of are where I’ve driven some 2-lane highway and thought, “this would be a decently challenging hill.” I don’t happen to run them because they’re further from my home and I don’t know of running trails. There are a few hills near the Fox River that would compare with lesser hills in Pittsburgh. Specifically, Northern Illinois is largely flat. I should also note that, even as a kid, my knees took a pounding and I dealt with a lot of pain as a result of my running. I suppose people in the West or even those further East who live in mountainous areas would roll their eyes but I make no apologies for the hills in Western PA. They are long hills, and they are steep at times. I’m originally from Pittsburgh and, although I haven’t lived there since 1983, I grew up there and my youthful running experience was formed on the hills in and around the area. By that, I mean it isn’t completely flat. I don’t know if this a uniquely Illinois thing but I never heard the term before I moved here. County parks in Illinois are called Forest Preserves. On weekends, when I run, I do so in one of the parks near me and the one I use more often than not is Grant Woods. There may only be one part to this story. It will be like GoPro without thrilling video. I went for a bike ride in the park yesterday and took pictures of the various hills which I’ll write about here. I’m writing to no one in particular since no one reads my blog and, certainly no one who supported my fundraising effort reads my blog. Today’s blog entry is my attempt to close the loop by providing some nominal evidence that I completed the run. I’m writing this on and I did the run on (or, variously, which I may get to later if I don’t forget). So, the only thing compelling you to do it is the implicit obligation you’ve entered into with your donors. You don’t report the day, the time, the place where you did it or the time it took you to do it. You don’t really have to do the run or walk. You don’t really have to do anything apart from paying the $39 ($40 is too much?) entry fee and hopefully raising some money. It saves the ASPCA a bunch of money, so that’s good. The “virtual” part is that you’re not at a race venue with a bunch of other runners at a set day and place. You’re on your own, or with a friend or friends and since I have neither, I’m on my own. The thing is that you sign up, raise funds and commit to running or walking a 5K distance sometime within a period of a couple weeks. However, for the sake of completeness, I feel some compulsion to document the #ASPCAVirtual5K. Like, is that a hill or just a piece of flat road taken at an odd angle? Just as the camera adds 20 pounds to photos of me (or so I claim), pictures of a hill are flattened and unimpressive. I don’t run with my phone and, in any case, I wouldn’t stop just to take pictures.Īnother thing is that the photos don’t capture it well. I sometimes take photos when I cross country ski because I have my phone with me then. … I guess there will be more than one part …Īlthough I run the parks, I hardly ever post pictures of them. So, the air was heavy but it wasn’t brutal. I guessed it was above 90% but would later find it was 81%. The temperature was not overly warm yet, being in the upper 70s but it was humid. I do a breathing technique which I won’t get into here as it would be a whole ‘nother story. Then, I set out on a 1.3 mile warm-up loop. I spent about 10 - 15 minutes on my active stretching routine that consists of high knees, butt kickers, lunges, side lunges, karaokes, frankensteins and high skips. Time was on my side as I didn’t have to be anywhere else for a while, so, I decided to do it right. I decided to get up early and get it done before it was too hot but I didn’t get up all that early and got to the trails around 10:00 AM. As luck would have it, the weekdays leading to the weekend were unusually temperate and runner-friendly for August, but the weekend was projected to be hot, in the low 90’s, which is hot for this area. I had committed to completing the run by Saturday, 08/25, the day prior to the deadline.