Every Hill is an Opportunity

I ran cross country and track in high school and college (the first time, right after graduating from high school).  Don't be too impressed, it was a teeny tiny Christian college, not MSU or U of M!!  I've heard all the sayings, such as:  "no pain, no gain", "every hill is an opportunity", etc etc.  "Every hill is an opportunity" was a favorite of my cross country coaches in both high school and college.   I guess I had all kinds of opportunities this afternoon!   Hills were on the agenda today instead of a track workout for the triathlon group I work out with on Wednesdays.  My total mileage for this workout was 8.2 miles.  1 mile easy on the paved trail then about another half mile to the street where we confused many residents by running back and forth over and over like a bunch of weirdos!  This street is a complete hill from one end to the other so we would run fast uphill to the highest point and then slow downhill, turn around and run fast up the hill and slow downhill, if that makes any sense.  We did 5 times so we ended up at the other end of the street and then jogged over to a park with a HUGE sledding hill and proceeded to entertain even more people by picking the steepest place on the hill and running up and down 5 times!  It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny and 80 degrees so there were a lot of people at the park.  There was even 2 other people running up and down the hill at a place where it wasn't quite as steep!  After the sledding hill fun, we returned to the street we came from and did 5 more laps.  My legs were spent!  It was a very slow jog back to our cars, approx. 1/2 mile.  We had a group of 5 tonight.  One guy was always way out ahead of the rest of us but I wasn't always the last one to the top of the hill! (most of the time but not every time)  I did not fall as far behind the others like I did last summer; I was only a few seconds behind!  The sledding hill was ridiculous and my pace for those repeats were in the 10s and 11s but for the repeats on the street, I was doing them in the 8:50 - 9:20 range and I'm super happy with that!!
This is from Garmin Connect:

Lots of hills/opportunities

 The green line is elevation.  The first set of repeats is messed up because I was hitting the start/stop button instead of the lap button so only the uphills were recorded.  I got it right after that. 
This crazy workout took about an hour and a half'; it was after 8pm when we finished.  It was 8:30 pm when I got home and I was starving! 
I'm working toward a decent 5K time on May 18th at the Detroit Race for the Cure.  I know I won't PR but, hopefully, I will PR for 5Ks in my 50s!  The 5K I'm running is the race where my current PR was run.   I'm convinced that it's the flattest 5K course in the world!  If pain = gain then I should have made some major gains this evening!!! 
Well, I am exhausted! (gee, I wonder why!)  I'm sore and I even used my foam roller.  My right foot is just a bit sore so I will wear my splint tonight.  (that's the plantar fasciitis foot from last year)

Runner Nerd
runs up many hills because every one is an opportunity