Was having a rough day, wanted to do something hard.
Pulled up, had to poo… decided to go find a bathroom, this was the right call.
fuel: post run - water / roctane - 3 salt chews
during run - 34 oz gu roctane - one sis gel, one Maurten caf gel, Maurten c bar, cliff 2x sodium salted watermelon chews.
The first couple miles I felt like my calves were gonna exploded had a lot of doubts but I pushed through the pain… after hitting some roughly 10 minute miles for the first 3 I was feeling pretty strong as I started to do mental calculations of where I needed to be.
Getting up and over the ridge was a hall… first 80 degree day of the season, a solid amount of winds up there probably 15-20mph gusts, I didn’t take time to stop and look at the veins much, this is my local trail so I run it quite a bit, got a local legend with this completion on Strava.
After the ridge coming down to south face is super technical and there was a group of 25ish people that I pass who were going up, I realized I missed a turn roughly 50 feet back and rerouted to get back on track.
After that decent the reservoir is a great resting point gave me the ability to get my heart rate down to zone 2 and eat some food while it was chill and flat.
I realized early on in the run that 34 oz of fluid was cutting it close and after smashing most of that summit ig the first time I knew I had to start rationing.
The way back over the top was rough but got up to the ridge and just held on. Was in a serious pain cave but was checking my time and felt good about it.
Around mile 13 I drank the last of my fluid and then just kept repeating to myself “finish this up” as a mantra. at this time I was starting to fixate on the total time on my watch face and it was giving me anxiety so I switched it back over to the route gps screen to finish up the run.
I let gravity take me down the final decent back to the car… and was excited, happy, overwhelmed with joy when I clicked stop on my watch and saw my final time after not looking at it for 2 miles.
I definitely came close to bonking out there… if I were to go at it again probably a little more hydration and maybe some fresher legs.
This is my first FKT and also the mountain where I fell in love with trail running so it’s very fitting… all it all this was a great experience.