Had an excellent run up Green and Bear today, it was an awesome morning to be out and I felt particularly good, at least on the ascents. Started from the Bear Creek TH and felt sluggish for the first 10 minutes or so as I was digesting breakfast and warming up. I soon started to get into a groove and focused on efficiency which soon translated into speed. All the steep sections that seemed excessively steep on Thursday, passed without notice today as I easily cruised along the trail. My splits seemed pretty good along the way, but I was still somewhat surprised to top out on Green in 49:34, a full 6 minutes faster than my last trip and it seemed sooo much easier for some reason.
After a short stop of less than a minute, I turned tail and headed back down, intending to carry on up W. Ridge to Bear, then over to S. Boulder. Along the ridge, the wind started to pick up and about then I ran into Ryan Cooper and we chatted a bit. He informed me that it was really cold up there, but how cold could it really be?
Sure enough, as I approached the summit of Bear, the wind was blowing pretty good, the temperature was cold and I was a bit chilled from my earlier efforts. I scrambled up the summit rocks, already having made the decision to skip S. Boulder, as I had no water, warm clothes and was thinking I would be better off in the long run to play it conservative for the sake of my IT band.
I slowly made the trip down Fern, going a pretty tentative pace, always aware of the IT, but it did not hurt too bad, and did not hurt at all once I got to less steep terrain which was encouraging, so I was able to cruise out faster than I have been able to run for some time.
Splits:
Bear Creek TH: 0
Mesa Trail: 9:52
Start Bear Creek Trail: 13:25
W. Ridge Jct.: 34:19
Green Summit: 49:34
W. Ridge Jct.: 1:01
Bear Summit: 1:29
Bear Creek TH: 2:07:43
