|
Ever since I've moved back to Pittsburgh in 2012 I've had this desire to run up Mt. Washington. I know this sounds strange, especially since I hate running hills, but I was always curious to see if I could accomplish this task. Sunday, June 21st seemed like the perfect opportunity to try this route and I was very happy that Bobby agreed to do it with me!
To start our run we parked at the parking lot near Station Square. To get onto the PJ Mcardle Roadway we ran towards the Liberty Tunnels along Arlington Avenue until we reached the Liberty Bridge. There is a set of stairs under the Liberty Bridge that we took to get to the bottom of Mt Washington. From there we start our long climb. Here is our route which ended up being a total of 2.5 miles (The uphill climb is approximately 1 mile): 
Before we started this run, I decided I would walk if I needed to, but I wanted to run as much of this hill as possible. Our motto as we ran uphill was 'slow and steady'.
I was able to run the entire hill! One thing I really enjoyed about this run was that trees lined the sidewalk and it was mostly shaded. This was a nice surprise since it was 73 degrees when we started to run. One word of caution if you decide to run Mt. Washington; it's not flat when you get to the top! In fact there are more hills when you make it up the big hill! Here is the elevation profile for the run: 
When we decided to run up Mt. Washington we weren't sure if we would run back down. Once we made it to the top we decided we would run along Grandview Avenue then retrace our steps back to the Monongahela Incline. This hill climb actually wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. Plus when you reach the top there is a huge payoff which includes awesome views of Pittsburgh!
View of Downtown Pittsburgh
View of 'The Point'
After the run we took a quick selfie and then walked to the Monongahela Incline station. The incline costs $2.50 for a one way trip.
Even if you aren't keen on running, I think this would be a great walk as well. Or if you only want to run downhill you could ride the incline up the hill and run back down! This wasn't a race or a group run, just something I've wanted to try for a long time. Now I can proudly say, "I've ran up Mt. Washington!" 
View from inside the Incline Station.
2 Comments
Have you ever considered deleting your social media? I know I have thought about it extensively. Sometimes it's hard to believe I've been a member of Facebook for ten years. I was one of the early members. I remember visiting their homepage and a list of colleges were shown. If your school was listed you could join. If not, then you could petition to have your school added to the site. My school, the University of Pittsburgh, was on the list so I joined. I never imagined that ten years later I'd still be logging into this site. I felt fortunate to have this new tool as I could easily keep in touch with my college friends, I also remember the first time I had negative feelings after using Facebook. I was a few months out of college, living by myself and working at my first job when I started seeing photos of my former dorm popping up. Seeing those photos made me incredibly sad. Of course I knew that others were moving into my former dorm room. That is what happens at colleges all across the country, but seeing it made me feel very sad. When I looked at those photos I wanted to yell, "Hey! You're in my old dorm room." Using Facebook has also made me happy. A lot of my friends participate in the Pittsburgh Marathon and on the day of the race it gives me so much happiness to see some many of my friends proudly displaying their latest accomplishment. Of course, if you are not a runner I can also see how having your news feed full of race pictures could be completely annoying. I suppose it's those happy moments that make me hang on to my Facebook account. Last week I wrote an article that appeared on the Huffington Post entitled, "If Social Media Were One Of Your Friends." I included Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest in my discussion and how each one could negatively affect my mood. (Click on the picture below to read the article.) What about you? Do you enjoy social media? Do you feel like you benefit from using it? Do you ever think about deleting your accounts?  |
Author: Sarah WarmanI like to run, take pictures and write. I've combined all three in this blog. 
 Archives
June 2019
 |
RSS Feed
