Climb every mountain...

Put your head down and dig in.  Then turn around and see how far you've come...

Well, technically speaking, I guess I'm not "climbing mountains" here, but I am running up the roads that travel them.  It's great to have hill workouts built right into my own backyard.  Today's 11 mile run involved a 2000' elevation gain, or climb, within the first 7 miles.  Read: steep and hard.  After that, the last 4 miles were quad and knee killers, but a heck of a lot faster! :)

I also really enjoyed the blessing of a cooler run, as some huge storm clouds developed above me as I ran.  I haven't felt rain and cool wind like that on a run in a long time, so it was quite refreshing.  As the sun came up over the mountains, the light made the clouds turn pink and purple where they hovered just above the mountain tops, and as the rain moved away from me, I saw two spectacular rainbows.  If only I'd had a decent camera with me...And it was as if the scene had played out just for me, because within a few minutes of being home and finished with my run, the clouds completely disappeared, the sun came out fully and the temperature shot up into the upper 80's.

I did stop briefly on my way down the last big hill to take the above self-portrait, to show you all the wind blowing my ponytail sideways and the cheesy smile on my face.  :)  (Then I went back this afternoon and took some additional photos to show you where I ran, in the summertime haze.)

Going up.  The incline doesn't look as steep in the picture as it is in real life.

Still going up.

Looking back down the road from where I came.

Basically where I topped out, our house is way down there and the ski hill is behind me, another 1000+ feet up.

Going back down.