King of the hill

In June I have a leg of the K-100 relay. That’s through the mountains. You know, the big rocky things with snow on the top. My leg is all uphill and has a nice high altitude. Since I am living in Edmonton, I don’t have a lot of experience with long inclines, or with lack of atmosphere. So, while visiting my parents outside of the Kananaskis, I planned to go run my leg as a practice.
After a 100km road trip, we arrived to find that the road was shut down for winter. Winter apparently ends in mid-June. So the gate stopped me from getting to my running route. So other plans needed making.
You know those hills you see at the side of the roads when you travel in areas with extreme topography. Every time I pass, I can’t help but think that it would be possible to climb to the top of one of them without too much trouble. It would make a nice accomplishment.
Really, they mock me. They have low self-esteem (You would too if you had bigger brothers with a permanent ice cap) so you can hear them calling out “Oh you’ll never climb me. You would have to stop the car and get out. Look there’s a ditch in the way. You’ll never even get to my base.” Mountains don’t need to taunt, they have nothing to prove.
Well, there I was, on the side of the road. Ready to do physical activity, but without a proper outlet for it.
I took their challenge.

Those hills are taller than they look. It didn’t help that they had altitude on their side. Or that I was wearing running sneakers instead of climbing boots. The side was steep, and the lack of oxygen meant that I had to stop every few steps to catch my breath.
But in the end, I won. I stood at the top. My GPS informing me that I was 1820 meters above sea level. About 300 meters above the base. Of course its batteries died soon after the summit. If it was still running, I might have been more ambitious. Behind that hill there was another which looked like a gradual climb to the top.
Either that or I had no energy.
So now those hills can just shut up. I have conquered them. No more lip now.

Hey, is that a mountain over there?