Spring was in full swing today. I was running solo today and was hoping to put in a decent effort up Green to test myself a bit. Started at Chautauqua and ran at an easy warm-up pace to Gregory TH. Yesterday, my legs felt great and I was raring to go fast, but I held back and was content going easy and being social. Today, I was mentally there, but my legs felt a little heavy, so I was not sure how the run was going to unfold. I kept a decent tempo, pushing a bit, but never really digging that deep.
I hit the ranger cabin at 15:58 and threw on the Microspikes for better traction. The trail was packed, but was a bit soft due to the warm temps and I was slipping a bit. There was some loose powdery snow still a ways before the 4-way and although the trail has seen good traffic during the day, footing was not perfect.
The 4-way jct. came in 33:39 and I was thinking 36 was in the bag, but I slacked a bit toward the top and ended up 37:13. I was pretty happy with that given the conditions and the fact that it was not an all out effort, just solidly running tempo and never really reaching the red zone.
After a heads up on a re-routing of the Bear Canyon trail from Tony and a play by play description from Homie, I was itching to check it out. I kept the Microspikes in my hand instead of on my feet, which turned out to be a mistake, as most of the trail was snow covered and icy. I kept expecting the trail to dry out, but it never did, except for a few shortish sections. My pace was cautious and slow, then the trip back to Chautauqua on the Mesa trail was an exercise in mud avoidance (futile). My split from Green to the car via Bear Canyon was a lame 53:46, just a minute or so off of my normal ascent time on that route.
Looking forward to the next few warm days.
Nice effort and time, Jeff. Dry trails aren't that far off!
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