Hill + hill with a hill encore

So I mentioned last blog post I was heading off the next day for some hills.  Yep weather was kind and I decided to head over to Camperdown and do some hill repeats on Mount Leura.   The way I was planning it was to run the bitumen road up and then the trail down and you basically do the circuit  of the volcano that way for a wee bit over 3km.   The weather was chilly so I wore long tights and tshirt.  Oh how I was to regret that decision, it got positively warm and here I was all in black.  Ouch.

So parked the car at the reserve and then the start is like this, it snakes around and then slowly climbs.   Take care if any tourists are heading up but I think only about 3 cars passed me the whole time I was there.   I've done this circuit before.  Plan was to leave the two bottles of water in the car so when I came back down I'd basically be running right by my car so I could have a swig then.  

Climbing higher and higher you get great views across the south-west.  

Every once in a while you see another mount on the horizon, this whole area is dotted with volcanos.

And a nice wide verge to hop onto if a car is approaching.

Sensational views from the top.

And more than a little breezy.

There's lots of trails around here, you can see Sugarloaf in this pic,

kind of reminds me of a bee hive.

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I am so lucky to live in this area, never thought I'd be a country girl

and yet this is where I end up happiest.

Took some panoramic shots from the top

Good excuse as I was huffing and puffing at that stage.

So it's up the whole way on bitumen

Then down on a trail.

And I might add stacks of those orange butterflies flying around me,

kind of felt like I was in a little fantasy land.

Which includes a lot of steps.

My shadow is giving the thumbs up!

I've often wondered when scrolling through instagram that many runners get great pics of themselves running.  Does everyone run with someone taking the photo or are they setting these shots up themselves?  I looked around, yep I'm on my own, no one in sight [read - no one stupid enough to do this too] so I popped my phone balanced against one of the steps and set the 10 second timer, ran down and then back up.  Hey what do you know, a running instagram shot!   And see what I mean about getting hot, black does not make for a comfy run.

So I got down and thought right I've mucked about taking photos on the way up the first time, I'd run it again without the need to take pics.  Now when I say "run it" I couldn't run the whole way up, but certainly did as much as I could with walks in between.  So yay, back to the bottom again, another swig of water from the car and as much as I'd like to have stopped at two rounds, the thought of showing an elevation map that looked like a pair of boobs was not going to happen, I had to go up the third time!

So certainly not the fastest morning but a really enjoyable and hard worked one.

I'm sure the calorie count has lied!

Pretty darn satisfied with myself at the end!  Hills done!