Hills – friend or foe?

I don’t know how this happened. Someone please help!
One of my self-assigned challenges this year is to try and run a half marathon PR. Now that in itself is not yet a reason to despair in January – another 11 months to go. No. No. I just looked at my race list and the Seattle Rock ‘n Roll half marathon may (or may not) be the flattest race I have signed up so far. Now, I have been to Seattle and I don’t recall the city to be flat. Sigh.

hilly trail

Here is my list so far:
January – Coyote Hill half marathon
February – Austin half marathon
April – San Francisco Rock ‘n Roll half marathon
April – San Luis Obispo half marathon
June – Seattle Rock ‘n Roll half marathon

See where I went wrong? I picked all these pretty locations which all seemed to favor the hills. Sigh.

This past weekend I made my way to ‘attack’ some hills. It seemed to have worked. My butt has been hurting all day.

I do like hills, but not quite running. Or when there is a sign like this:

But the views are pretty when you get to the top of the hill:

overlooking Portola Valley

Here is another beautiful view I had on this hill adventure:

I love being on hills and enjoying the views, even the crawl up (’cause there is no reason to lie, we both know there is no way I’d actually run up a hill!).

So I’ll keep enjoying my hilly runs and look for a flat race in the second half of the year.
Any suggestions on a local Bay Area flat half marathon?