PM- Afternoon long run with Barry. He and I ain't too bright- we decided to run one of the hardest, slowest, most technical trails in the state. On the hottest day of the year (80 deg). At the hottest part of the day. After a day of work. Yeah, it was slow but great training.
We met at Table Rock state park. I've run here some but never gone to the namesake rock, so we went that way, along with TONS of other hikers. The trail up was much more technical than I expected, with some of it forcing us to walk/climb both up and down. Reached the overlook at 3.5 miles in 55 min (it was beautiful), then ran back to the junction with the Ridge trail. Once on the ridge trail, we would only see 2 people for the next 2 hours, climbing steadily to Pinnacle Mtn, the second highest point in the state. At this point we were 1:50 into the run but had gone 6.7 miles. We descended to FHT and ran a few miles on it.
At the 8 mile mark, I noticed we had climbed 4400 ft and descended 2900. That's a lot of vert, but it was downhill from here. We ran back to the parking lot and I dropped Barry off at the 3:15/13.5 mile mark. I ran another hour by myself with just over 5 miles, and I felt good- ran up the whole thing, even the steps we had walked up initially. Finished just before sunset with 19 miles in 4:10. Suunto says 5300 ft climbing, garmin says 6900 ft. Avg HR 160. Then had to drive home, arriving around 9 pm. Long day. Run link here.
My knee hurt every step of the run, but doesn't seem too much worse for the wear today. Taking it day by day for now.
Here's a few pictures.
Barry and I on top of Table Rock
Barry at Pinnacle Mtn
This is fairly easy trail for today, though much steeper than the camera makes it look (this trail drops 300 ft in under .2 mile)
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