I had been meaning to give this one a rip since my friend Iain posted the first time on it quite a few years ago. But it's not quite my home trails, and I hadn't gotten around to it. Since I have a long race coming up, and have a lot of aerobic fitness from a failed Diretissima (Unsupported NH-48) attempt earlier this year, I need some speed. I decided to give some long runs purpose and got out to scout most of the route one weekend, then managed to give it a solid rip this go. Carter had a much faster time than Iain, and I know he's a really strong uphill runner, but I got the sense that the downhills were very soft and I'd be able to get quite a few minutes on him there.
That's pretty much how it played out as well. I tried to hang on to Carter's uphill splits while staying in marathon effort zones, then ran fun-fast but controlled downhill and gained a lot of time without getting reckless. I was kind of shocked to be 5 minutes up on him already at the Andrew Brook Trailhead, but that gave me confidence to not redline on the way up. I was again surprised at how much time I had put into Carter at the bottom of the first long descent, but felt good and kept it rolling. It also turns out I must have been looking at the wrong watch interface, because looking back, I was only 8 minutes up, and I somehow thought it was 15.
During my scouting run, I bonked going up the mountain the second time, but fueled a lot better this time and managed to run every step, though at times fairly slowly. Having missed scouting the final descent wasn't optimal and I got a little confused in places. Carter's track (which I had loaded) went a little wonky (or else my GPS did) and was way off trail making me second guess myself a bit. Also, knowing I had quite a bit of time in the bag, I just let off the gas quite a bit, but still made up a few more minutes on this descent.
I had 1 40g carb gel just before start. I drank 4 bottles totaling about 2.2 L with 260g carbs and 200mg caffeine during the run.