Tuesday 12/15/09 Sanitas

Felt lazy about getting out, but got dressed up and headed to Sanitas anyways. Of course it was freezing cold where I park (causing me to overdress), followed by a 10-15 degree rise in temperature just 100 feet off the valley floor. I started off walking and easy jogging with no real agenda and started ditching layers about 1/4 of the way up. Once I pocketed hats, gloves and tied my jacket around my waist, I felt a bit renewed and bumped up the pace to moderate. The trail kind of sucks right now, plenty of bulletproof ice to require studded shoes, some mud, but also plenty of bare rock for the studded shoes to scrape and scratch on which gets quite annoying and even uncomfortable at times. After a few trips last week busting ass in the snow and barely cracking 21, I wanted to get in under 20, which is normally a given with just a little effort. Once I knew I would break 20 (an arbitrary goal), I backed off for the last few minutes and ended up at 19:29. I took it easy on the down (16 minutes) due to the crappy trail conditions and not so optimal studded shoes.