08:30: Warmed up easy for a last little aerobic session here. Did about 3km easy on the dirt road, then drills, 3x strides. Legs felt a bit more tired than I expected but ok.
Goal was to run a controlled workout on 7 Hermanas (the hill in our back yard whose summit I’ve now been to an appropriate 7 times as of this writing). I’d done a similar session on 12/24 and run up in 63’ and down in 42’ for a 1h45 round-trip time, my current PB and the FKT for the route. I hoped to crack an hour and bring the RT close to 1h39, but, again, keeping it very controlled.
Part of the way I kept it controlled was running it fartlek-style, instead of all in one push. The structure was 6’, 4’, 2’ on with 1’ recovery jog between each. This ended up working out nicely (each set was 15 minutes, so 4 total sets would be an hour).
The first set felt hard, as these runnable, up-hill sessions at altitude always do. At some level, you just need to get used to that feeling of hurting very early but knowing it’s not going to get worse.
I made good time and could see from my splits I was just a bit ahead of my previous session. I thought I might be better acclimated and thus make up time in the second half, but in the end, it always just a tick under.
I hit the top in 62’19, just about a minute ahead of last time, and didn’t stop at all but just turned right around and headed down.
My number one goal on the descent was NO FALLING. This is, for me, a fairly technical descent, right at the limit of my comfort zone to be able to push when I’m feeling good, but still taking tremendous focus, especially on a few sections. The first couple hundred meters were slow as I caught my breath a bit from the uphill and then made my way extremely carefully through “the mine-field” and across “the box of rocks” until finally hitting the smoother trail in the last 3km.
There, I let myself go a bit, as mind and body both felt great, and ran definitely the fastest last 3km I have on this route.
I hit my watch at the trail-head in 39’43 for the descent (my quickest time down) and 1’43’03 for the round trip, just over 3 minutes ahead of last time.
Overall, this was a great last little workout session here. I would have loved to crack an hour, but that just wasn’t going to happen today in a controlled effort. It was great to still run quicker on both up and down and feel so much more comfortable both at this altitude and on fairly technical trail. I’m right where I need to be.
Shoes: HOKA EVO Speedgoat (beat to shit pair)
Fuel: 1 Gu gel (85mg caff) after warmup
½ bottle maurten 320 caff on the way up
=260 cal total = ~130 cal/hr