Who can guess which of these shoes is my new favorite running shoe??
The Hoka One One above?? Or...
The New Balance MT 101 Below??
One of the two above depicted shoes are what I ran in for the first time today up Green Mtn. and they totally rocked! Loved every step of the run in them.
It was my first time doing green mtn. in a number of months, and the last few weeks I've been running really easy and really flat. So I wasn't sure how I would feel charging up the steepness of Green again.
But I felt pretty good. And happily my legs felt better than they have since Steamboat, and I had zero pain or even hints of issue in my left hip. Very happy about that.
Here were my splits up Green. I took Gregory to Ranger to Greenman up. Then I went down Bear canyon and back around to my car via the mesa trail and down chataqua:
- Gregory - 1.01 Miles - 15:10 - HR 166 avg - 864 feet ascent
- Ranger to Greenman - 1.22 Miles - 14:33 - HR 159 avg - 543 feet ascent
- Greenman to summit - 1 Mile - 16:36 - HR 168 avg - 890 feet ascent
Total time trailhead to summit: 46:19
Totals for the day: 9.5 miles - 1:36 - 10:06/mile avg pace - 2800 feet ascent
Felt so good to be back in the mountains after 2 weeks of easier, flatter, recovery running!
I think that's close to or possibly my fastest time up green mtn. on this route. I think I've done it in 46 something before, but I can't recall any time of doing it faster. I'm still humbled by this mountain every time I try to run it. The fast dudes in the area run it between 32-33 minutes on fast days, and like 37 minutes on an easy day. So for me, to average 165 HR and only be able to get up it in 46 minutes clearly shows how much room for improvement my fitness level has. But that's great! If I couldn't improve it wouldn't be as fun. When I first ran it I did over 55 minutes. I imagine today was not fully indicative of my capability on that mountain though, since it was my first time running up it in around 2 months. I'm pretty encouraged that I felt good today on so little hill training recently. I bet I could get my time up to Green closer to 40 minutes within a couple months if I did it a couple times per week. I think I am going to start doing that now that my hip seems to be better and I have such a beautiful month or two of fall to take advantage of.
Today I was blasting the down hills hard in my new shoes, and absolutely loving it. My last mile split down chataqua was 6 min. My last half mile was closer to 5 min pace with my pace being in the mid 4's a lot as I looked down at it. The trail gets really steep and is wide open and really straight and fast. It was fun to fly down much of bear canyon and the mesa trail in sub 7 min. pace. I'm seriously pleased with how the shoes handled, and how good the rock protection and just overall comfort was.
Did you figure out which pair of shoes I was wearing yet??
