Week Six - Twice to the Summit

Week Six begins with the most "hill miles" I will run during this training program, eight miles in all.  The hill mileage drops down after this week, the long runs increase to 13 and then 16 and then 18 miles, and then I forgo hill miles entirely and replace them with mile repeats, Yassos, and tempo miles during September and October.

Eight miles seemed the perfect excuse to run up my favorite mountain again, Big Bearpen - from the Town Hall to the summit and all the way back (4 miles), and then repeating it a second time.  It was one of those cool, foggy, lovely days in Highlands, the summit entirely shrouded in that kind of brilliant fog that seems to be on the verge of falling apart into sunlight.  The familiar views of the lakes of South Carolina and Whiteside were invisible.  And quiet.  Nothing but the sounds of my footsteps, and a ferocious little dog locked in the cab of a pickup truck near the top that I startled into a sharp volley of barking each of the four times I passed him.

On the second ascent, I decided to run the loop around the summit clockwise, something I have only done once or twice before.  (Why do runners instinctively run loops, like tracks and summits, in a counter-clockwise direction?  Are we hoping to turn back the clock?)  What a surprising revelation it was!  I noticed a little tree-house on the right, a long curving stone wall on the left, two or three houses I had barely noticed before.  It was as if I was running on a different road entirely. 

How astonishing to realize that a simple change in direction can reveal things I have run by so many times before and simply not noticed in the brilliant fog of routine.