Thursday is Hills or trails day in my newish weekly schedule, since the house is still under remodel mode, which limits the amount of time away, I decided on hills. Most runners equate doing hills to being either one big, long, hairy run up or doing repeats on some hill that they learn to hate. I have a feeling that at some point, I will be doing both of those things.

However, today I did the Middle Road Loop, it is my original fitness test course (it tells me a LOT about my present fitness levels) and it has seven hills of varying difficulty and grades. I am not ready to go hard yet, but the course has hills and I can claim it as a hill workout.

I also wanted to try the Salomon Sense Ride v1 on roads and see how they work there.

The weather wasn’t horrible by any stretch of the imagination low 70’s and a nice breeze, although the humidity levels were pretty noticeable. Which meant that I wouldn’t be attempting any testing of my current fitness levels today.

Not that I want to at this point and time anyway.

I started out slowly, I have got that 9:00 minute pace down pretty good and the first 3.0 miles were right around it. Going down Philbrick Hill was nice and the next couple of bumps felt good. Going up the hill on the Middle Road I maintained a steady pace and effort. After that the humidity and sun on the tar did start to get a bit warmer and slowed me down.

When I run into these conditions, I tend to let my body tell me what my pace should be versus pushing too hard. Right now I am working more on increasing my mileage and getting my fitness back after my latest injury. So I am not looking to stop the progress I am making.

When I got to Blake and Stevens Hills I definitely slowed down, but I was able to keep moving forward, so it was a win.

The Sense Ride v1 were comfortable and my Tailor’s Bunionette only bothered a little during the first mile, which is better than other shoes are doing right now. I don’t know what is going on, but all the shoes that were working great for me before, now are bothering my right foot? Not what I want to be feeling when I am starting to run longer distances again.

Something has changed in that right foot and I gotta figure out what/why, so that I can run comfortably in the shoes that were working so well.

Overall, a really decent run, where I learned that the Sense Rides can be used as road shoes without too many issues. They are a little heavier for running roads than I like, but at least they do not bother my right foot, so I have a feeling that they will get a few more road miles between now and August.

We do have our new deck and steps finished and will enjoy being able to sit out on the deck over the next few months. Although the squirrels are still figuring out what on earth it is.

The front steps are a lot safer than the old one, that I had repaired way too may times over the last 19 years.