That was one tough workout. My friend, Laura, I really pushed ourselves with the All the Way Arounds and the Countdowns. Of course, I had to tweak the Countdowns a bit to make them different from last week’s workout. So instead of DB Bear Crawls we did Man-Makers. We did 10, then 9, then 8 . . . get the idea. Ugh. (The video above was shot quite awhile ago. This time I used heavier weights and did pushup-row right, row left – pushup – jump to squat – clean and press.)
A faucet had been turned on somewhere at the top of my head and rivers of sweat were just flooding my face. My arms were starting to feel like they were going to fall off. But why stop there? After 50 minutes of hard work, we both wanted to be done. Instead of just ending it there, we decided to “put a cherry on top” of our workout.
Warning: This girl is an animal on the hills!
Five Hill Sprints seemed like a fitting way to end this super-challenging workout. So we picked our landmark – about 30 yards up the hill – and took off on our first sprint. Let me stop here to tell you something about Laura. She’s a nut. Now that she’s got her whole iron-deficiency thing under control, she’s a fricken animal in the workouts and especially when it comes to running hills. She’s much better at this than I am. She speeds past me every time. The only times I’ve ever beat her to the top were when she was anemic. I loved those days. Nice, huh. She loves running hills so much, she’s got it in her head that we are going to sign up for the Pier to Peak and run a whole half marathon uphill. So as we reached the bottom of the hill for our next sprint, she had a plan in mind.
“Let’s run a little further each time!”
Being one who never backs down to a challenge – and that’s what this was – I answered with a confident, “Sure!”
I picked out a row of trees just beyond our first marker and decided to run to one of those with the runs we had remaining. Each a few yards further up the hill than the previous one. And off we went. With each sprint up that hill, Laura finished further and further ahead of me. Did I mention that hills are her thing?
Finally we were about to start sprint number five, our last one for the day. I had my tree picked out and was ready to push up that hill for a good 70 yards. Then Laura looks over and with a villainous look in her eyes says, “Let’s run to that car! The front of the car!!”
The car she was pointing at was about 100 yards up the hill. Ugh. But, of course, I agreed. I did warn her that by the time I got up there, it probably wouldn’t look like much of a sprint, but I would get there. And off we went, arm pumping, knees driving, lungs working hard, and every muscle in my legs just screaming.
“We’re in training for Pier to Peak, you know!” Laura is totally convinced we are both signing up for that rigorous race.
Laura beat me by a good 15 yards on that final sprint. She supposed to. That’s her thing. She is the Hill Runner! And pushing me was her role to play today. That’s what workout buddies are supposed to do.
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