I’ve got a quilt made of t-shirts from runs I’ve competed in. Each square of fabric, each logo, represents weeks or months of training. Time, sweat, money, all culminate in a parking lot some Saturday morning, and then a shirt-scrap of memory. Some retain meaning better than others.  The Gruene 10k is a run through a nice riverside community not far from where I live. In the early fall they host a popular race that is now too crowded, but I used to love it. 

The most distinguishing feature of the Gruene (pronounced “green” around here) 10k (pronounced “ten-kay”) is the one big hill. Now, to non-Texans, I have no way of defending it as either “big” or “hill”. It’s a pretty steep grade though, and most people couldn’t ride a bike up it. Around here that’s a mountain.

For quite a few years they set the race up so the hill came at the end of the course. I respect the diabolical bastard who made that choice. The knowledge of the big challenge waiting for you at your most fatigued is brutal. It impacts how hard you push yourself during the entire race; to keep a reserve for the end. After about the first ten percent of finishers, most people walked at least part of it, then had to decide how motivated they were to run the last hundred yards to the finish. The race planners switched the course so the hill came at the midpoint of the race loop not long ago.  This layout also has a certain vicious “I can’t believe I paid you bastards money to do this to me” charm.  Now if I’m a serious racer, I have to decide how much I am willing to push up the hill, and how crappy that  will feel for the second half of my race. Novice runners had to decide if they really wanted to continue out and back to finish the whole 6 miles, or maybe they could just stop now, and get a beer. It’s right there. It’s mean, and I love it. As much as I like running, it is a masochist’s sport, and I have a soft spot for races that acknowledge that. 

Before the race, I could always tell the “serious and experienced” runners: they were the ones that warmed up on the hill. I was part of that crew. I liked to have an idea what heart rate I wanted to be at when I approached the bottom, and what pace I could sustain all the way to the top. During the years I raced it, when I hit that hill, it was like the rest of the runners started sliding backwards around me, as their bodies started screaming at them to slow down. I am not a “fast” runner, but I know how to hold a pace. Consistency is a form of speed. It is even more evident when you hit the hills.