If you have a hill nearby, you can get a lot done there.
We have a pretty good sledding hill near the house, I had a kid that absolutely could not run. He was all elbows and knees pumping like crazy with no forward motion. Out of desperation, I took him to the top of the hill when he was about 12, pointed him at the tree line about 40 yards away and 15 – 18 yards below, told him about how Valeri Borzov won the 100 meters at the Olympics and gave him a shove. He never got fast, but he did learn to stride.
“The Hill” became a thing in my family as pretty quick as soon as they learned to stride out, we quit running down, pretty tough on shins and joints, and started running up. Here’s the drill ….. Sprint up the long side to the pushup stands, 5 pushups, walk down the steep side, sprint up the steep side, 5 pushups, walk down the long side. Repeat 9 more times. thats 20 sprints and 100 pushups. Usually takes about 35 minutes. We’ve had some excellent puking. My all time favorite kid, other than my own, finished that workout one summer day, went home with his dad and puked his guts out there there, because he didn’t want the other boys to know. That’s damn near the definition of tough in my book.
My youngest regularly runs something approaching that workout now while carrying two, 3 lb dumbbells. As Bo once said of Anthony Carter, “he’s as hard as barbed wire”.
