Crows, Ants, and One Mother of a Hill

I swore I wasn't running that hill again this week.  I vowed that I would plow through it again next week but I wanted to put some distance between me and it for a bit.  Bring on anything else, anything at all, and I was prepared to do it, but the thought of that hill again this week wigged me out.   Well, watch out for what you ask for because when I asked my trainer for a workout for me and the group, where do you think he sent us?  That's right, back out to that mother of a hill.

Here's the insanity that the girls and I did:

• Five times up and five times down the steep, long, mother of a hill.
• 50 jump squat rotations
• 100 push ups
• 150 mountain climbers
• 200 high knee sprints
• 25 burpees
• Five more times up and five times down the steep, long, mother of a hill.

Eight of us went out to the hill.  Seven of us ran up the hill and one of us (yours truly) had to grit her teeth and briskly walk up the hill, channeling her inner mountain goat.  Gravity was my friend on the decent though and I was able to get a little jog going.

The first round of hill runs down and it was time to tackle the daunting next set of exercises.  Gone were our cushy mats from the gym; I must commend all of us girls for toughing it out with push-ups on the pavement.  Intelligent person that I am, I decided after the first twenty push-ups to put my hands in the grass and was quickly rewarded with being bit by fire ants.  I shot up from the ground, said some choice words about this workout feeling like a turn in the arena of the Hunger Games as the venom burned (like um fire) through my hand, then sucked it up and finished my set any way.

Then it was time to face that blankety blank hill again.   At this point we were all struggling to one degree or another and like an omen, a group of crows decided to gather on the power lines overlooking the hill and commenced to honk loudly at us as we ran by.  "Shut up crows!" we yelled but they cawed even louder.  Our muscles were screaming, the sun beat down, and the cacaphony of crow music was non-stop but somehow we managed to finish and stagger back to the gym.

Later, when asked by my trainer how I liked the workout I said, "I hated it. But because I hated it that must mean I need to do it."  That being said, the hill and I are done for this week.