Welcome to the hell that is Mt. Bonnell

Vicky: Since we had the day off from the gym, we decided to do our Mt. Bonnell assignment in the morning to get it over with. The whole time I was rushing to get ready, I was thinking "Why are we doing this to ourselves?" I have to keep reminding myself that I may feel terrible, sore, and run down now, but I will look and feel great later.

Roman and I carpooled with Freddie from popolio.com down to Mayfield Park, where we were to park our car and run up Mt. Bonnell Road. Armed with my trusty heart rate monitor and iPod mini, I started running alongside the boys. At first the road dipped, but then, once we got to the bottom, the road turned very steep. I only made it up about half way until I became the first to start walking. After a short walk break, I started running again to keep up with the boys. I kept running, with a couple more small walk breaks here and there. My heart rate was getting up to 184! It was so nice to finally make it to the top; 780 feet above sea level! Those 11 minutes of climbing were sure rough!

Back down we went. I was scared of going downhill and ended up "riding the brakes" the whole time, pounding the road with every cautious step. When I was younger, I had slipped going down the only hill in Miami and wound up in the hospital getting stitches. I was not about to relive that. I made it down in only 9 minutes, but I was hurting! We cooled down for a little while around the car before heading home.

So, Roman had been complaining about his glutes hurting yesterday. Mine were fine, until after this run. Now they are killing me--probably due to the "Bow to the Queen", kettle bell swings, and bear crawl exercises we did yesterday. I hope what they say is true: "No pain, no gain". My glutes are in pain, so I hope it pays off with a nice butt. :)

Roman: Time for something a little more scenic. Since we had the “day off” (I use that phrase loosely) Vicky, Freddie, and I decided to do our grab bag of running Mt. Bonnell. Even though I had been sore all yesterday, specifically my nalgas (glutes) and abs, I wasn’t going to let that keep me from running Mt. Bonnell. The way up was brutal and coming back down was no picnic either. After that, my tibialis anterior (a.k.a. shin bone muscle) muscles were extremely sore. I was having a hard time walking, at least I thought I was. Guess I was hitting the brakes harder than I thought . . . or maybe I was pushing up the hill harder than I thought. Either way, I was really sore. Gorgeous view up there though.