I've been talking alot lately about walking. Well this past week, I got my kids in on the action! A couple of years ago, I would take all 4 of my kids on a marathon walk of about 8 miles every other Sunday. The Barley's pizza treat at the end was the bribe to get them to agree. But actually, after a couple of times, they really started enjoying it. I think kids want to WANT to spend time with their family. And mine did when they saw that they actually had fun!
Bennie and I have been walking together since we were dating. It was one of the things the many things about him that I fell in love with. It was so great to have this sweet man in my life who had a great time just walking with me and I really believe it made us even closer. So now, we were all getting in on the action. Sonja is 17 and Dallas is 13, so I really was not expecting them to warm up to the idea of running up and down hills with their mom and stepdad. But guess what? They were actually excited!
Sooooo.....we start by walking about 10 minutes (after being lectured to by Sonja and Dallas about the importance of stretching) before heading up the hills. We had to head across the street to a subdivision that has not been built yet. There is an INTENSE vertical hill that is paved and that leads to a HUMONGOUS dirt hill that is even more vertical. That's the one I just run up as quickly as I can. I started running up that hill before Dallas and the next thing I know, that 13 year old throw rug is passing me at warp speed. Like it was NOTHING!
Heading up the first hill.
I'm feeling great about 2/3 of the way up the hill, but I swear, the other third, and I'm seriously burning! Dallas took it like it was nothing but a thing. Now, would you believe that this is the same kid who basically plays video games in his room in all of his spare time? The really cool thing about this was the confidence it put in all of us!
We made it! Believe it or not, we were STILL smiling!
Then it was time to come down. Who woulda thought that coming down would be so scary? The key is turning your foot horizontally and NOT running! We did this hill twice with some walking in between times.
So then we started heading back across the street to back down and up another hill. Now, THAT I could tell, got Dallas's attention!
During the walk, or rather workout, because this was really about doing the hills; we decided that we would try to all do this together a couple of times every week. I've found that with my kids, if they just get moving the eating takes care of itself. That's not to say that they don't still want junk food, but if we only keep decent stuff in the house, then at least I know that when they're at home, they're eating well. I also found that what they loved about doing this was that it was a challenge, and so they felt good about themselves for being able to do it. I'm discovering that challenging ourselves is absolutely key to sticking with exercise. But more about that in another post. That's worth expanding on!
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