There’s not a lot of opportunity for me to add hills to my normal running routine. My lunch time running route has a total of 31 feet of elevation gain, which might as well be zero. Before we moved to Dallas, my normal short run route had 250 feet of elevation gain over the same distance. These are the elevation profiles of my regular route in Kansas City, and my new route in Dallas.
Then
Now
Part of my current lunch route is along the top of a levee. While not incredibly conducive to hill running, the backside of the levee does make an ok option for hill repeats. It’s not incredibly high, but it’s steep enough to give my legs a good workout. The other day I ran up and down three times as fast as a I could (a little less than 60 seconds total), and then rested before doing that same thing two more times. Definitely got my heart rate up! I need to be doing this more often. I can easily add these hill repeats into my normal lunch run, and it’ll only tack on a couple of minutes to my running loop. Anyone who has run hills routinely knows how they can have a huge impact on your training.
In non-running news, we’ve been making some progress on the adoption front recently (I mentioned it a while ago here – we’ve been wanting to adopt an older sibling group from the foster care system). It’s an odd process, and it’s really hard to explain the emotions that come along with it. Soon, some people that we’ve never met or talked with, who know us only by a couple sheets of paper and a photo, will be sitting down and deciding our fate with a brother/sister that we’ve known about for a little over a month. In the grand scheme of things, I know so little about these two kids, but I already feel so attached to them. This is the closest we’ve been to being matched, but if the state decides to go with another family then we will be back to the beginning and no closer than we were six months ago.
I’ve been caught off guard with how lonely the process is. We have received a couple of photos of these kids, but we aren’t allowed to share them with anyone. It’s really difficult to not be able to show off these two beautiful children, but we’re legally not allowed to forward the photos or post them anywhere online. We also know some details of their background and why they ended up in foster care, but we won’t be sharing that either. There aren’t a whole lot of broad-scale options for why kids end up in the foster care system (neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, parental incarceration, etc.), and at this point we technically could share with close friends and family the reason why they are no longer with their biological parents, but we’re choosing not to. These kids are old enough to be in control of their story, to decide for themselves who they want to know the details about their past and who they don’t. So we’ll leave it up to them to decide. But it’s hard to say “I can’t tell you that” when people ask.
So what can I tell you? They’re beautiful, intelligent, they’ve been dealt a sh*tty hand of cards in life, and I hope to God that I get the privilege to call them my daughter and son.
Questionably Texan 
I hope you do too! Thank you for the update – I’ve been wondering how things are progressing on that front. What is the time frame like? When will you know?
They gave us a rough time frame of when we should know, but given the inacurracy of the timeframes we’ve been given in the past, I’m not putting much weight on what we were told. It will likely be at least several weeks before we know anything.
That’s a tough amount of time, but I suppose it’s short in the long run. My thoughts are with you both.
Oh, and I think they’d be lucky to have you (and vice versa)!
I wish I could send you some of the hills from up here!
Thanks for the adoption update; I’ve been curious. Your last line brought tears to my eyes. I really hope it works out.
I hadn’t done hill repeats in years but before IM Canada this past summer I did them once or twice. I kind of enjoyed it 🙂
I’ve only been to Edmonton once, and that was at least 20 years ago – are there many hills there for you to run, or do you need to head to the mountains?
There are tons of hills in the river valley, both trails and sidewalks beside the roads! I can think of at least six or eight awesome hills on the road.
If I go into the valley on lunch runs, I have a doozy of a hill to climb to get back!
That’s not the levee at WRL is it? That thing is steep. I’m sure you’re familiar with Windhaven hill. Good luck with the adoption, I hear it can be a lengthy process.
Not WRL, this one is far more glamorous – Bachman lake (by my office). I’ve driven Windhaven hill, never run it though. I should, it’s relatively close.
A lot of people will run there from Arbor Hills, do repeats and run back. A lot of people bike up and down it too.
You and your wife are amazing people and those kids are so lucky to have you. A good friend of mine and her husband are in more of a beginning stage of the process right now and it has been odd for them too. I hope you get some more clarity soon and that you can have your family all together in the same place!
As far as hills are concerned…LOVE them. I’m lucky to have some good ones near my house. Running on flat is more of a challenge for me!