No Treadmill in Sauna Required....solution discovered...

So yesterday I began my 'hill training'......cough cough splutter splutter...I tell no lies...

Now when I signed up to the race, there were a few areas of concern, the biggest were the weather change from here to there and concern about how my body would cope, and then the whole hilly aspect of running down in the mountainous Cape, versus running here in gorgeous flat Oulu :)

I've pondered solutions so far these are them:

The weather one first....My very generous baby brother provided that particular solution :)  I leave in a few days for a visit to South Carolina where he lives, so I get to run in the warmer weather over there, CANT WAIT..I feel like a kid waiting for the arrival of Father Christmas!!!  My parents are also there at the moment so I get to see them too, all very last minute but sometimes life provides opportunities you just cant say no too!

We are there for roughly 3 weeks and I've sussed out a 15K race in the area...so I'm hoping that while I'm there I can get in at least 3 longer runs.  I know its a bit early on in the training, as after that there nearly 2 months until the race itself, and usually you fit the longer runs in closer to the race day.  But i'm working with what i've got and my assumption is the colder Februaury / March in Finland will mean I cant get longer runs like that in then.  However, if I can even just make 2 longer runs I will be thrilled (I always tend to be over enthusiastic in my attempts, if you have not gathered, and then the reality seems to set me straight...so 3 or 2 I will aim for...hehe)....but then again I am hoping that the warmer weather will give my body a hint or two of what it is going to experience in the near future preparing it for the shock in March.......AND if I do pass out from the sheer inability to run in warmer climates, my pops will be there riding his bike next to me as my support team and he can kick me and do some damage control to ensure I keep going ;) I decided last night I may need to pack my camelpack so I have loads of liquid while running there...if you remember, i'm a sweaty peeps in this place, so imagine the response when I run in a place that is actually hot :) Sheesh to think I used to run in the bloody desert and now most of my running takes place in temps below 10 degrees C!! How life changes and throws you along paths you never anticipated....O well O well

Gees I can ramble...forgive, but I have all this stuff rolling around in my head (my mom says I move at 100 miles an hour....) my mind seems to move at 200 miles an hour ;)

So anyways onto the topic of the day....the hills part...bear with bear with....(If you have ever watched the British TV show Miranda, you will get the joke there.....NOTE If you have not watched it, look it up on youtube, I find that I have a lot in common with Miranda)...so hills folks hills...

Well I seem to have recovered from my bout of the man flu (or too much sugar, the jury is still out ;) and I have decided that there seems no ways I can find anyone who is willing to lend us a treadmill, and anyways there is no space in our Sauna for me to squeeze the treadmill in!  All the hills in the forests I could have run on are now ski paths.  So I have come up with the next best solution that I can think of.....running up and down the underpaths on my regular routes...Some of them are sort of 'hill like'....

I have to admit, its a poopy solution, but its a start, and its better than nothing...I hope.......

So yesterday in my non-man-flu state, I set forth to conquer the hill issue...Here is how my run looked......sad to say you really have to look HARD to see where I sneaked in the 'hill' parts, but if you look closely there are all sorts of little jagged bits sticking out of the main route...Those are the up and down bits I ran...




I have to admit feeling like a total twit, but I made sure that if I did pass anyone in my little weird runs up and down the path to the bus stops or up and down the road under the bridge, I smiled and waved.....and I did a lot of giggling too.....as honestly the elevation is pathetic, but my heart was right......This is all I can think of bar the sauna and treadmill at this stage of training...and as I say, that is not a solution....So yip...here are some pics of the efforts I made...no laughing please!!!!!!

I PROMISE there is some elevation involved.....

A nice section in the forest where the sun was rising and if you look really
closely you can see some golden light through
 the trees...You may need a magnifying glass though... 

Proud to say this other lonesome runner was PASSED, yes you read right,
PASSED by this particular machine of a runner...(i'm talking about me!!),
It does not happen a lot, so when it does I tend to feel a little excited!!

Blurry, but I attempted to catch the sunrise......AND this was the prize downhill of the run too ;)

So yea, for now I feel the two main issues are addressed and I think due to my brillaint solutions you should feel it in your heart to sponsor those lovely little kids in SA who will benefit if you do....its  a win win if you think about it!!

Click here there are apparently only 85 days left to do so..EEK!