Matt Gets Running

Just a quick check-in: I’m still alive.

My run today was a bit rub­bish — I’d for­got­ten that bit of the A4 Port­way between me and my tar­get hill, Bridge Val­ley Road, was closed all day today. They’re doing rock­face safety checks, basic­ally mak­ing sure that no fall­ing rocks are likely to kill any ped­es­tri­ans or knock any cars into the river.

So, I got as far as the “foot­path closed” sign and had to turn around. Instead, I tried to head pretty much straight from my place up to Clifton Vil­lage, which is a fair bit steeper, I think.

My route ended up look­ing like this on RunKeeper.com. Note the elev­a­tion graph — 80 metres upwards in about a kilometre.

I couldn’t keep going for long. I had to stop a couple of times for a rest, once to walk, once to stop com­pletely and get my breath back for a couple of minutes.

So, I def­in­itely need more prac­tice on hills. But hey, it was pretty nice once I got up there, so I really want to get to the stage where I can run all the way up to the Downs and still have enough breath left to jog around them.

I think I’m just going to have to stick to my plan to run up Bridge Val­ley Road — mak­ing sure it’s actu­ally open first — and try to get a little fur­ther up it without stop­ping every time. I fig­ure the only way to get bet­ter at hills is just to keep on trying!