“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary
Alright, East Lomond isn’t exactly Mount Everest. And I’m definitely not Sir Edmund Hillary. But last week, for the first time ever, I managed to run all the way up to the summit of East Lomond (448 m).
I love the Lomond hills, I run there often and I’ve stood at the summit of the peaks many times. But parts of the ascent are incredibly steep and thus far my journey there inevitably involved at least some power hiking. But no more – on Friday, I finally ran all the way up to the top! It wasn’t fast, and it certainly wasn’t pretty, but to me it represented something that I genuinely never thought I’d be able to do. I must confess that I revelled in my victory so much that the descent involved a rather embarrassing outburst of that celebratory “pretending-I’m-an-airplane” running style.
Do you have any running challenges that might seem impossible but that you are determined to conquer regardless?
Girl Runs Wild 
Wowee! That’s amazing! Congratulations!
Thank you! 😀
Wowzers, you’re fabulous!!! How inspiring!! Good for you!! XOXOXOXO!!!
Thank you, Kristin! 😉 I never thought about inspiring people, but that’s nice to hear – I hope you can conquer your own mountain! 😀
Awwww, thanks!!! Xoxoxo!!! You do inspire!!!
Congratulations! That is an amazing challenge to conquer!
Thank you! It’s nice to see that my training is paying off and I’m getting stronger – although I think a huge part of that challenge was mental (as per usual!).
Congrats, what a great accomplishment!
Thank you Lily! When you come visit, we can go run there – the trails on the way up are amazing! 😀
Way to go! Ha, you have to run like an airplane sometimes!
I’d love to run Boston, but I’m not at a 3:15 marathon…yet. Working on taking baby steps to get there someday.
Yes, we’re going to run Boston together, remember? 😀
Oh yea, that’s right! I’m working on it!!!!!!!
You and me both! 😀
Good job on conquering the hill and for running down airplane style. I sometimes take fast corners airplane style. I want to do an ultra, but then I recall how much training I have to do and then decide it’s more fun just to do half’s and just run with my dog. But then I read about someone doing an ultra again and then I want to do an ultra all over again. It’s a vicious circle.
I think that you should definitely take on an ultra. I’m half way through training for my first one, and it’s been an amazing and very profound experience so far. During the week, it’s more or less normal marathon training (the high mileage kind), it’s only on the weekend where you’ll be spending a lot more time training, by going for some very very long runs. =)
This is inspiring!!!
I do the airplane thingy all the time.
I never realised that celebratory airplane running is so popular before I posted this! 😀 Maybe I won’t be quite so secretive about it in future.
Love it!
You ran up a mountain?! Go you! That is awesome! I would love to walk up a mountain, let alone run up it! 🙂
Awww, thank you! It’s more a big hill rather than a mountain. 😉 I guess this means I’ll have to tackle a genuine mountain next?
It looked like a genuine mountain though!
Well, I guess that’s relative! It’s about 450m high, so it takes some running to get up there!
Great job! Sounds far from easy….
And don’t worry the potentially embarrassing “pretending-I’m-an-airplane” running… I do it too…(don’t tell anyone….).
Thank you Kari! I won’t tell anyone about your airplane running, don’t worry – but rest assured that this blog post has taught me that we all do it! It turns out it’s just another one of those dirty little running things (like disappearing into the bushes) that everyone does and nobody talks about. 😉