baddest badass

every once in awhile, you need to do one of those workouts that you know can tear you apart and then tear it up during said workout. this morning i participated in the tour of tens, which was put on by someone in my trail running club. michelle, the non-race director director, chose 5 of the toughest hills in austin and then challenged us to do 10 repeats of as many of the hills as we could in 6 hours. you would start at one hill (of your choosing) complete 10 repeats and then go on to the next. to be considered a finisher, you had to complete the 10 repeats on at least 1 of the hills in the tour.

i started my morning off with 10 repeats of jester, a hill i had only heard talked about as one of, if not the, hardest hill in austin to bike up. i finished my 10 repeats and ran into someone i had met last august who had also run leadville and who is leading a group training to run it again this year. his group was headed in the same direction as me, so i just waited for them to be ready and then we all headed to the next hill together. the next hill was mt. bonnell. mt. bonnell is not small, but it felt easy having just run jester. after finishing up at mt. bonnell, we headed to the hill of life, a "classic" texas trail covered in crumbly limestone. i finished repeat number 10 at exactly 1p, which was the official stopping time for the tour. i was the only person to finish all 10 repeats on the 3 longest hills of the challenge and as a result, i won the baddest badass award and a certificate that says i completed the tour, which i can hang on my fridge. i'm particularly excited about the latter as i currently have nothing on my fridge.

i'm also giving two thumbs up to girl talk therapy today. wedding politics were giving me a headache and i got to talk to kehau about it for a long while. she was able to share some advice...and then laugh at me and say she was grateful she was not in my position. hopefully it all gets sorted out soon.