We banter a lot about technical challenges to Citystriding like repeated road names and difficult to reach nodes, or even tricky dirt/gravel roads, but I don’t remember many threads about elevation gain. My home city (Lisbon) is one of the cities of ‘seven hills’ and has some very vertical neighborhoods, very few parts of the city are truly flat. The surrounding area is even more topographically diverse, with a river valley and many steep hills. As I’ve branched out to explore all that is around me, I’ve had to plan my routes accordingly for really tough climbs. I don’t want to complain - it’s been great for my race training, and my legs have adapted to it since moving here. Most days after running my Garmin tells me I’ve climbed >100 flights of stairs. I’m curious if any other folks are routinely running lots of hills or even tougher places?
Not very. I live in Texas. A rather flat part of Texas. My other major stride area is Florida, as my parents live there. FL is even flatter than TX.
I used to travel, internationally, for business… But that was way before CityStrides. That would have given me some great Life Map entries, but I doubt any completions.
I know you used to live in the greater Boston area, so you know what my hilliness level is like – practically none.
I did not realize how completely flat Cambridge and Somerville are, until I got at least some small hills in Belmont, Medford, and Arlington.
I relate to both replies because I grew up in Florida and began running there before moving to Boston! I’ve progressively gotten hillier, I guess my next move has to be to somewhere with actual mountains haha.
And speaking of Cambridge, I’ll be back next month for the Marathon and to reclaim 100% on that city for the, oh I don’t know, 4th or 5th time now that the construction is done on those developments near the Lechmere T stop.
I’m looking forward to my nth completion of Cambridge as well. I’ve been out of commission with a stress fracture ---- too much city-striding?! no! ---- and that is top-of-list for me to get to.
Born and bred in Auckland NZ - City of Sails but also City of 53 Volcanic Centres (many of which are cones). And the bits that aren’t hills from volcanoes are hills from other forces on the earths crust. There are flat bits out there but I haven’t quite made it to them yet…