Two things changed all that. Firstly, if started practicing tai chi. It's something I'd been curious about for years, and a friend finally talked me into trying it. It's a fantastic form of exercise and I'd recommend it to anyone within striking range of a good teacher. Although it is a fairly low intensity exercise, it is pretty much all done with a good bend in both knees. So your quads get a gentle but firm workout. It was after a few months of tai chi that I started to notice that hill back to my home started to feel just a little bit more like the rest of my run.
Secondly, I started to spend quite a lot of time on the road for work, traveling to a city which is built on several hills. Living out of a hotel made running seem an even more attractive diversion, but finding anywhere remotely flat was next to impossible. So I naturally ended up running more and running up more hills. One evening I recall feeling a particular need to burn off a little energy after a tough day in the office, so I though I'd have a go at a hill interval programme I'd read about. I ran to the steepest nearby hill and began. From the bottom to the first lamppost and back. Then to the second lamppost and back. And so on, for about half an hour. It took everything out of me. However, on the short run back to the hotel afterwards, I remember thinking how comparatively easy running on the flat felt. I was hooked.
I now enjoy hills. They're exhausting, for sure. But the satisfaction of reaching the top makes them worth the effort.
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