Last week’s abbreviated vacation at Smith Mountain Lake was the perfect nibble of relaxation.

I don’t know why I had visions of flat ground in my mind since the year before proved to have some pretty hard runs on winding country roads – but I did.

Before I left for vacay, I declared to myself that I was going to use the extra down time to get some good workouts in.

Of course my original plan was to wake up at the crack of dawn (isn’t it always?) and enjoy the misty solace of the birds chirping while getting a trillion miles in.

Fast forward to more like 9:00am, immediate mugginess, and rolling hill after rolling hill.

These photo are legit lying. I swear the STEEP STEEP hill I ran up was not a mirage. I’m blaming it on bad photography.

The second day of vacation I fared a little better – 8:50am wake up call, with the determination of running hill repeats. I had to work with what I got.

After a quickie warm up, I ran down the .3 mile hill….and back up again to my water bottle hanging out by our house’s mailbox.

Need a HIIT workout? Hill repeats’ll do it.

By the time I was sufficiently sweaty, my dad came out with his dog to greet me.

She was so cute and I loved running the last hill repeat with her! It was my first time really running with a dog and it made it so much more fun.

It also didn’t hurt that she basically pulled me on the way up. My third hill was almost a whole minute faster than the others. Thanks, Shiloh!

So it was decreed: Smith Mountain Lake had enough hills to last me awhile.

Bring on the flat swampland, D.C.!