700 feet on two feet

Today’s run: Twin Peaks. As best as I can tell from some low-res topo maps on the web, I ran from 150 feet above sea lev­el to 850 feet in two miles, then back after a flat loop, totalling 4.1 miles in 44:34. That’s a 10:52 pace, hard­ly what I’d nor­mal­ly call speedy, but I don’t nor­mal­ly run hills these days so I call it a resound­ing vic­to­ry. In fact, con­sid­er­ing how long it’s been since I’ve done a hill run, the fact that I com­plet­ed at all is a major triumph.

The math says that 700 feet of climb over two miles is an aver­age 6.6 per­cent incline. Does­n’t sound like that much, but I guess I keep in mind that it’s an aver­age incline. Also, any­thing seems steep­er when run­ning it than when, say, look­ing at num­bers on a calculator.