One of my favorite trails in Columbus is the Scioto Audobon. I park my car, run a couple miles towards downtown Columbus, and then back out to my car.
When I do distance or trail runs, it’s generally to force a psychological shift through physiological exercise.
A really great feature of this particular trail is that it ends every run with a short, but fairly steep uphill gradient. So when I’m on the return trip, generally already taking some short walking breaks between jogging, I sprint the last two-tenths of a mile or so around the bend and up this hill to finish out the run.
The run itself is arduous. Just putting in the 3-4 miles beforehand is taxing, and then I finish it out with an uphill battle when I’m most exhausted.
But we encounter this all the time. How often do you work your ass off towards something, only to feel like it gets harder near the end when it’s complete?
At that point, it’s best to reach down and sprint to the finish with everything you’ve got left.