Hill Repeats!

I did run hills this morning in my neighborhood! But I am not referring to the type of hill repeats most of you may think of. Considering that it was around 75 + degrees today here in Atlanta, Georgia, the kids and I wanted to definitely spend sometime outside. So this afternoon we headed out to play in the backyard.

Somehow, after some time swinging and playing catch, things lead to a fun game of sliding down the rather large hill in our backyard. :) What could be a better use for the top of a sand box than a sled?

Cooper, Gracie, and I climbed up the pine straw covered hill and took turns riding in the plastic sandbox cover from our crab sandbox. I should note here that when Adam sees that I have put pictures of our backyard on my blog, he's probably going to freak! :) Whereas my obsession may be triathlon, his is the yard. I of course think its fine and never notice when the pine straw is thinning. He looks at it more as a hobby and takes pride in making it look nice, even though he is rarely satisfied with it. So if it's any consolation to him, we had sooo much fun and thought it was perfect!

Isn't it amazing that an athlete can fear and dread hill repeat day. Don't get me wrong... I LOVE a challenge. I also love the feeling I get when after spending countless hours training I start to notice that my heart rate doesn't accelerate as high when I do those really difficult hills and they somehow begin to seem "not so bad!" But we all go out there knowing that it's going to be tough, it's going to hurt, and those hills are going to take everything out there that we have!

However, as I spent my afternoon climbing and running up the hill in my backyard with Cooper and Gracie knowing that once we got to the top we got to slide down "really fast" for an awesome little thrill, I managed to not even notice that hill repeats was exactly what I was doing! We were all breathing hard, but instead of closely monitoring my heart rate, I was too busy laughing and cheering and having fun!

The only "rules" of the game... you had to shout, "Yo de lay he who..." on your way down!

So the next time I'm headed up a mama-jama of a hill, I'm going to try the Cooper and Gracie way of handling hill repeats, and instead of worrying about my hr going up too high, I'm going to say to myself..., "Yo De Lay He Who!!"

Until next time!

K :)