06:45am: Talk about making lemonade from lemons! What a change from 12 hours ago.
I got into bed thinking I would still try to do some semblance of what I had planned (10-11hrs continuous) but halfway to sleep I realized that was dumb and it would be better to just continue the double Ts that have been going so well, so I pushed my alarm back 2 hours (from 0230 to 0430) and finally fell asleep.
The workout ended up going great and once I felt like I had a plan that I felt good about and was excited about, my head was in a much better place.
Clockwork warmup 10' easy jogging and then drills and 4x strides. Felt pretty good.
Workout was 10' at LT and 1' rec and the plan was to go all the way to the summit instead of just up Polichaski. Also I decided to walk easy on the rec segments instead of fully stopped time for the sale of giving myself a shot at the FKT to the summit.
First rep felt good and was 6'25 at the 1K and about halfway up the steep grass slope. HR only 153 for that first section and would be fairly low all day, definitely a sign of fairly tired legs and ready for a recovery week. Second segment went well other than a slight twinge in the calf which I had to walk out for a sec (HR 159, highest of the day for any stretch). Next one took me past halfway and just above the first carwash (158). From there, made it just below the MTB turn (only 150 avg) and then ran the next one past the polichaski finish (53’20, 156 for that chunk) and continued up horses. Made good time up there (154 avg for 23’17 for the segment) and then could see that the FKT was likely at that point. Topped in out 1h35 on my watch (1’34’55 for the segment, 154 overall avg HR).
Hung around for a while as I figured it was likely that this was really my last Rucu summit of the block. Very stoked not only to get the FKT but mostly just to have such a strong pivot from last night after feeling very down and frustrated with the whole tent situation.
Absolutely gorgeous up there and enjoyed every minute. Jogged down easy after a while and only saw people the last 10 min or so, otherwise a completely solo day on the mountain. A perfect way to cap things off.
Total 16.3km, 2h22, 1860m+.