Gaining confidence

For todays trail adventure run, I once again wanted to run hills, different hills this time.

I chose Birch, Lower Mac, hill up to the Pitock Mansion and Firelane.

If you remember, Firelane is my goal. I want to run it, without stopping and at a reasonable speed. I have never run Firelane without stopping. It's located just slightly after mile 3 on Leif Erickson or near the Wildwood/nature trail intersection. It's .40 long.

When I left the house, it was 31 degrees.

In a nutshell, this is what I did. I started at Birch trail, ran down Birch, took a right towards the Stone house, ran up to the Pitock Mansion (without stopping), turned around, ran past the stone house, going up Wildwood towards Birch, all the way to the Nature Trail/Firelane intersection area.

By now, I have to say it started snowing, just a little and it was a mix of snow/rain.

I ran down Firelane, took a right on Leif, ran a tiny way on Leif, no more than .25 one way, turned around and started to head up Firelane. I said "attempt #1" I got about maybe .15 of the way up and my legs were completely burning, so I just stopped. I didn't start walking; I just stopped, caught my breath and started again. I kept going, without stopping, until I was almost at the top, when I felt the burning desire to stop again. I stopped, caught my breath and kept going all the way up to the top and kept running. I will mention that this was not a record breaking speed up Firelane, but it was the running motion.

It started to snow again and it kept getting worse and I think it's safe to say, I was running in a "almost" snow storm and it was starting to stick to the branches. I lastly ran up birch.

I quickly got in my car. I had a choice to make. I could either go down 53rd and turn right and go up Cornell and up to Sylvan or I could go left and go down towards Fit Right. I am a huge baby when it comes to snow. I hate driving in it and I have a huge phobia of driving in it, scares me to death and I instantly freeze up and freak out. I like to think that I am a fairly intelligent person, but I made a dumb decision. I went right and started going up the hill (Cornell) and the snow was sticking more and more to the ground. Well by the time I got to the stop sign, the ground was completely covered and I knew I would have to keep going up. So I finally got my brain back and turned around and went back the other way, where there wasn't much white at all.

I feel good. Nice run.

16 miles 3:36.