This was also one of the big lines in the Khumbu that I hadn’t run before, so it was exciting and new. The first few km were on the main EBC highway trail, but after that, it cut up the valley directly to Gokyo where I’d never run before. This was super beautiful, really nice forests and then eventually got up onto this really flowy balcony singletrack up high on the hillside way above the valley. Kept effort really well dialed and used HR to keep things in check and that went very well. Also fueled really well, so energy management was great in general.
Absolutely beautiful crystal clear day. A few sections where the trail was crowded w/ bubs who had just left their camp for the night, but a lot of it I had mostly to myself. Arrived in Gokyo around 3h50 and spent 10 minutes there restocking on water and snacks and then headed back down. I had figured sub 7h00 would be very good for this route and that seemed realistic at that point.
Let myself push a bit more on the way down and didn’t look at HR at all until after the fact, just went by effort. I wanted to really push the last climb on the way back to the EBC trail and had plenty of energy to do that and then really pushed hard for the last 4-5km super runnable EBC highway trail. This was excellent and I felt incredibly good and HR was the highest it was all day in those last 25’ or so. A fantastic way to finish.
Jim was at the finish which was really nice as he had a sprite (it had been incredibly hot the last few hours). We hung around down there for a bit and then walked back up to the house.
A great day.
Total 6’49’55 48km 2799m+.
Fuel:
Outbound: 3 gummies (540), 4 gels (400) = 940
Inbound: Almost whole pack of pringles (500), mars bar (250), 1x gummies (150), 2x gels (200), 1 coke (250) = 1250
Total = 2190 / 6h50 = 324 cal/hr