December in Colorado, you're my friend. You really know how to hook a brother up. Thank you. Perfectly dumping all the snow in the high mountains and leaving the Boulder trails dry and the weather sunny and mild. You're the best.
Today, despite feeling pretty fresh and ready to go, I still feel like Green mountain handed me the smack down. But, I suppose that is the nature of the beast, when tackling the front side of green, due to the 2300' of vertical over 2.1 miles. Isn't that above the legal running limit or something?
Through the middle of the run I was kind of annoyed at myself because even though my legs and heart felt relatively fresh I couldn't mentally push myself to maintain a solid pace the whole time. There was one section in the middle where my heart rate was down at the low 150's because I was feeling mentally weak and not wanting to push myself anymore. I think it was nothing more than mental weakness, because I should be able to push myself for 40 minutes in the 160 range at least, especially when I'm rested and pretty fresh.
But despite that, I still managed a PR of 39:50 up the front side of Green (amphi/saddle/greenman). And I'm not ashamed to say that it is a completely pathetic time in comparison to all the super mountain dudes around here with PR's around 32. But I am personally happy that I finally got up that thing in under 40, and also that I know that my potential is there to do much better than that. I actually stopped and rested for 25 seconds at one point and I hiked a ton of it (which may possibly be a faster and more efficient way to get up though for some of the sections.). But nearing the top, the last 6 minutes especially, I forced myself to run all of the final stair section, and then I kept the running pace through to the end with a sprint up the final ridge that left me gasping a bit at the top.
And just check out how gorgeous it was out there this morning!!
50 degress, sunny, calm, had the mountain entirely to myself, running in shorts and t-shirt...this December is awesome! (although I can admit to kind of looking forward to running green again once it is snow packed all the way because it smooths it out a lot and is fun in a different way)
Total for the day: 7 miles - 1:31 - 2930' ascent (including warmup and cooldown through chataqua and up gregory a little ways)
Splits up/down green:
- 22:27 - up amphi/saddle to greenman junction
- 17:23 - greenman junction to summit
- 24:56 - down
