Running 1:00:00 [3] 6.99 mi (8:35 / mi)
Finally decided I was going to have to brave the cold weather at some point, so today might as well be the day. Let me say, when I made this decision I had no idea what an adventure this run was about to turn into. I didn't want to run up Bates and vaguely remembered someone telling me I could just keep running along 2nd ave for a bit and there was a different street I could take to get back to Oakland. Now, I'm not sure if this information was false, or that I just made the mistake of staying on the trail instead of running right on the street. Regardless, I was running along the trail, passing the Birmingham bridge with no way to exit the trail - running in the opposite direction I wanted to. At this point, the trail had no longer been salted so I was running on a combination of snow and ice, what fun! The trail finally passed a parking lot when I was nearly to downtown so I took full advantage of the opportunity to exit the trail. Unfortunately, I was at the bridge that went straight into the tunnel, which I could not run through. The only way I saw to go was up some stairs, which turned into a whole lot of stairs all the way up to the Duquesne bridge...way worse than running up Bates. I then managed to find my way through the Duquesne campus to fifth, and then had to run back up the hill to Oakland again. Was very thankful to finally make it home, and got my fill of running adventures for the week!