I keep coming back to this as a test for fitness before an A effort. Today things went really well, and makes me feel pretty confident for longer things in June. Conditions were overall very good, though a few blowdowns and overgrown parts down low in the first mile.
To my knowledge my splits were:
Start to Red Rock turn: 39:00
Red Rock to Great Brook turn: 1:16:40
Great Brook to End: 1:44:16
I still don’t know how Luke Spooner cooks the first mile of descending after the Great Brook turn. I ran it as well as I ever have and still have back significant time against his run on that section, while nearly twisting my ankle 6-9 times. No idea how he does it, but that’s some stout running.
More broadly, the Miles Knob loop is super cool, as are the Western Maine mountains generally. In a region that hyper focuses on New Hampshire mountain efforts with few exceptions (Long Trail, 100 Mile Wilderness, etc), it cannot be said enough: these routes deserve to be run, even if they are not as prestigious as some in NH (with the obvious exception of Mile Knob because it’s the new prezi).