Planned for a potential FKT attempt on Polichaski today but gave myself some options. I knew I needed to be 23’00-23’00 at the “halfway log” and around 31’10-31’40 entering the carwash. I figured if I was on pace for these two splits, I would give myself the green light to go for it, but if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t force it today, but would stop at those points and then do some short reps to finish the climb. Also worth noting that I’d planned to be attempting the Cotopaxi FKT today, but the snow conditions there made us abandon that plan yesterday, so this was a last-minute pivot.
Warmed up like clockwork, 10’ and drills and 4x strides. Ran in La Sportiva Prodigio Pros. Felt okay on the warmup but tummy was a bit off all morning, maybe just nerves.
I have so much data on this course and had good info from last week’s 6x 8’ workout as I remembered more or less where I’d finished each rep there, as well as remembering my ballpark splits from the FKT last year. I was 6’21 at the 1km mark which is just about perfect. I knew I’d been quicker (6’09 I think) in last years FKT but that seemed too fast, so I felt good about this early split. From there, I hit the top of the steep grass in about 10’40 and then the next split was the turn just before the forest which I’d remembered as 14’10 from the week before but I think it must have been 15’10 because I was right around 15’00 and for a second thought I was way off pace, but KSch and everything else seemed to line up. Had a very strong stretch up to the halfway log in 23’15 or so (interestingly, there’s a strava segment for the first half of the route which had me tied exactly with my fastest time ever -- the other time being last year’s FKT).
From there, I was still well under 3’00/KSch up to the short carwash. This stretch was rough as it was extremely muddy and slippery and I definitely lost time here because of it. I was nervous I’d lost too much as I came out of there and saw I’d be barely under 32’00 at the start of the carwash, making it too close for comfort. I was still under 3’00/KSch pace but knew that I would lose a lot in the carwash and would need a very strong finish. I pushed hard and had my second fastest carwash segment ever (just 2 seconds slower than my PR, also from last year’s FKT).
But really, the record came in the last 8 minutes once I hit the MTB trail. It was also insanely slippery at first but I felt very strong getting onto this terrain and really running again. I ran a big PR on this stretch and ran my fastest last “mile” segment (1.6KSch) in 4’26 to really make it count. FWIW, that last “mile” was almost 20 seconds ahead of last year’s FKT time. I felt incredibly strong pushing that last stretch and overall very stoked to get a PR and FKT, but more so in the way I ran it. I had PRs all over the second half of the route (including the entire second-half segment). I feel so much stronger than when I ran this 8 months ago and that is exactly where I want to be in preparing for a massive STRENGTH event in another 2 months.
Very, very pleased. Excellent last-minute pivot. Great mental and physical work today.
Cooled down very easy down the MTB trail where I only took one full on slide through the mud and cow-shit.
Editor's note: I asked Tyler to comment on the disparity between the watch time and his reported time, and here's his answer, which satisfied me: "I've always used the strava segment for the Polichaski VK as that's how I got Karl's time to beat from many years ago, so use that as the standard. I always start my watch like 50m early to make sure it registers the segment (and stop a second or two after passing the post that marks the finish)."
-NB