Thank You for Hills...

This morning's workout was hills. Usually I'll be doing them on Wednesdays but this week's schedule was a little different so I did them as the last workout before my rest day on Friday. Good way to end the week but my legs definitely felt tired.

The view from the top of the hill

I'm lucky to have a big hill right behind my house so after a short warm up, I started up them. My routine is to alternate just running straight up as fast as I can with doing different stuff like one hill is butt kicks, one hill is high knees, one is running backwards and one is grapevines. I can usually only make it about halfway up the hill doing those different ones and then I run the rest regular shuffle shuffle style. When Coach BB is around she likes to have me do lunges up the hill but I usually skip those when I'm by myself, I feel too silly doing them and they leave me way too sore.

There's usually one of these owls watching me just like this

I listen to music and try to motivate myself up the hill by yelling C'mon! Let's Go! but I don't always feel like I'm really going as fast as I can. This morning I tried saying a mantra I read about in this article by Kristin Armstrong in Runner's World: Thank you for hills and strength for climbing. She was right, it fits in well with my steps and I found myself saying it over and over as I went up the hill. thank you for hills and strength for climbing thank you for hills and strength for climbing thank you for hills and strength for climbing.

Thank you for hills?? That's a new one for me, my mantras usually are along the lines of RUN FASTER and GO HARD OR GO HOME or DON'T DIE (my favorite at mile 24 of the marathon). But I liked the rhythm of it and I liked the idea of being grateful to be running. So often I complain, especially about running hills, and I forget how lucky I am to be able to run, to have beautiful weather and safe streets and non-injured legs and..the list goes on and on and on. I was even feeling grateful for having my hill-being able to run on it makes me stronger and hopefully faster.

I haven't always been thankful for hills, we have a love-hate relationship. For a long time when I was in my 20s, hills were no big deal for me, I would charge up them, usually leaving my running partner in the dust. Then something changed-maybe having kids? maybe taking breaks from running? maybe living on top of a hill? and I found last year that I hated hills and that I ran up them really slowly. Now that we live on top of a hill, I have to run one every day, always at the end of the run when I just. want. to. be. done. So I would stomp up the hill at about 0 miles/hour and hate it every step. Then I started running hills on a weekly basis and while I don't love them and I'm not tearing up them like I used to, I don't hate them as much. And I'm taking steps towards being grateful for them.

Thank you for hills and strength for climbing
Thank you for hills and strength for climbing
Thank you for hills and strength for climbing

Here I come up  the hill in the Bridges Half Marathon last year-it's coming up again in 2 weeks!

High fives for my fans!! 

I'm hoping this year it will be even easier to power up this hill!