Overcoming the Fox Hollow Hill

I ran the Fox Hollow hill this morning. I've been thinking about adding this hill to my mid-distance runs to get used to running a hill (approx. 2 miles) mid-way through. Fox Hollow has always been a hill I've had a little fear about just because it seems to go on forever when I drive to the trail head which is at the top of the hill by the raptor center. But this morning, it seemed right. I couldn't get motivated to run yet another loop on Rexius trail. And I did not want to run flat roads in the dark. So Buddy and I made this morning an exploration run. We took streets we never run on. I challenged myself to run any street that had even the slightest incline as we meandered over to Fox Hollow. When I run hills now, I have a particular pace I focus on depending on the grade and then on my way down my goal is to go as fast as I can to get my legs used to the quick turn over and the pounding. I've read this builds strength and so I'm going with that. Last year this training strategy seemed to help on the longer races; my legs didn't seem to fatigue and I never had "dead legs". So now that I've overcome my fear of Fox Hollow, I think it will be a regular part of my mid-week training runs.