On climbing hills
When people run, they are frequently afraid of hills. Steep hills are generally regarded as making the run harder. But physically, this doesn’t actually make any sense – there is very little extra work done in climbing a hill, in comparison to the energy expended by running at all. The reason we have a harder time with hills is because we try to run up and down them at the same speed as on the flat. We simply don’t slow down enough.
When I first moved to San Francisco, I was amazed at how hard it was to walk around the city. I’d go out to dinner and get frustrated at how I was often sweating in my nice clothes by the time we got there. After about 6 months I realized that I didn’t get sweaty anymore. Optimistically, I initially figured this was because I had become stronger. But later I realized that I had simply learned how to walk more slowly uphill. The brain tends to want to walk at the same speed, which works OK until you run into a place with fairly steep streets.
There is some kind of lesson here, which is why I wrote this. Often when running (here in San Francisco), I’ve been struck by this thought and how it somehow connects to work.