I have to admit I laughed a bit when I discovered one of the reasons to use the Cross Kirkland Corridor for the Mother’s Day Half Marathon was to reduce the number of hills runners had to contend with in the course.

As both a runner and someone who grew up in this area, I can appreciate the complicated relationship Eastsiders have with their hills. They give our landscape variety. They also provide fantastic views from homes, to the delight of real estate agents.

But they’re lousy if you drive manual, prefer commuting on a bike, or have to use them during bad winters. Try driving up Finn Hill with a thin layer of ice on the roads, for example.

Until I was in second grade my family lived on (the other) Main Street at the top of a hill, in the appropriately titled Lake Hills neighborhood.

Like ordinary boys of a time seemingly outlawed now, my older brother and I loved riding our bicycles around trying to find trouble. To prevent this, my dad liked to run alongside us and provide some direction, geographically and metaphorically speaking, usually to Lake Hills Park near Tillicum Middle School and Phantom Lake.

Our journey always inevitably concluded, however, with the long, grueling haul up the hill on Main Street back to our house. My dad usually had to push both of us up after we had pedaled furiously, but futilely in the hopes of making it up ourselves. I don’t recall if I ever made it up that hill on my own. Maybe it was like Charlie Brown and that lousy football.

But I’d like to think this prepubescent regimen adequately prepared me for when I joined the cross country team at Sammamish High School. I can’t speak for other high schools in the Bellevue School District, but we had plenty of options to choose from when it came to conditioning on hills. In particular, there is a trail running east of Kelsey Creek consisting of hills known as the “Seven Hills of Hell,” which we were instructed to run as though riding a roller coaster – slow to the top, sprint to the bottom – until our legs felt like jelly and our lungs so charred we sounded like a former Marlboro Man in an anti-smoking commercial.

Our home course at Robinswood Park also had hills aplenty.

Our coach had a thing about hills. He loved them, saw them as opportunities to gain an advantage over other teams who trained on flat ground, and he taught us to attack them mercilessly. It seemed cruel, but it paid off during races when other runners struggled or tried to keep their pace despite the elevation increase.

Whether due to my own peculiarity, or the particular strain of masochism that seems inherent in cross country culture, the experience became addicting. Even today, I have to restrain myself from sprinting up hills while venturing through Seattle.

While attending Eastern Washington University in Cheney, I kept up on running to maintain strong cardio and sought out the one hill to run up in town.

My last year of college, I discovered the Bloomsday Run in Spokane, which usually involves 50,0000 runners.

The decision to participate was very much a spur-of-the-moment type of thing. The last day of registration, and mere days away from the race, I decided to take a bus into town and sign up. I then arrived in downtown the morning of the race completely unaware of what to expect from the course.

As it turns out, there were many hills. Many, many hills.

At the same time, I am having to duck and weave through thousands and thousands and thousands of other runners, some more motivated than others.

Just recollecting the race is a mental exercise.

I think I speak for many Eastsiders when I say we appreciate hills, but all in moderation.

TJ Martinell is a reporter for the Kirkland Reporter.