This trail is absolutely awesome. You can see the loop throughout most of the route. It’s also a lot more runable than many of the trails in the Pheonix area with long sections of smooth gravel.
I ran this at a casual pace clockwise about a month earlier and knew I’d be back. I asked Scott Traer if he’d like to have a crack at his record with me but sadly it didn’t work with his racing schedule. So I set off solo on a cool overcast afternoon relieved that the terrain wasn’t saturated after raining heavily the whole day before. Wanting a different perspective, I set out counter-clockwise this time after a warmup up the first 1.25 miles. There are a lot of trails in the beginning so I wanted to ensure I didn’t skip a beat while making the initial turns.
It felt good to hammer the 900 foot climb in the beginning on fresh legs. I focused on small consistent steps instead of large powerful bounds up the boulders. Once at the top, from then on, I had to get my average pace down as low as I could because I knew I would be hurting on the final 600 foot ascent. The trail along the ridge was fantastic and I only saw several people.
By the time I got to the base of the second climb, I had gotten my average pace down to around 7:30 and the ascent wasn’t as long as I remembered it being. The last mile was a breeze and I cruised to the trailhead sign at just over 1:16. Great start to a Christmas weekend.