Pikes

Nice day to get a May ascent for The Grid.

Started at 5:08 am. Wore my Nathan pack (wind shell, balaclava, gloves, Microspikes, empty water bottle, space blanket, Spot, way more food than I ate, etc), carried a hand bottle, and tied a shirt and pants around my waist.

Legs felt dead from the start. Jogged a bit of the W's, but just couldn't keep that going, so mostly hiked. Jogged on and off up to Barr Camp, but mostly just the flat and downhill stuff. Filled up and treated my hand bottle at Barr. Jogged almost nothing from Barr up to A Frame. Snow started some distance below A Frame (1/2 mile, 3/4 mile?) but was firm/packed so not a big deal. Left the trail at tree line and headed straight up. Much more snow above tree line than when I was up on 3/2. Unfortunately, the snow wasn't completely firm, so I was sinking in a bit (just a few inches, not much postholing) and thus tried to avoid the snow for the most part.

When I hit the Barr Trail on its long traverse over to the Cirque, there were good footprints in the snow on the trail, so I opted to follow it up. After the Cirque sign and a few more switchbacks, ran into another snowfield. From here, I followed steps/tracks up the snowfield to the summit area, topping out maybe 50 yards south of the Barr Trail. The wind was ripping on the summit. Ran over to the highest point, then popped into the summit house. Nice and warm in there. The employees were setting things up for the day. Filled my hand bottle. Considered buying a candy bar but ate a granola bar that I'd carried, then started down.

Cautiously descended the snowfield. Then stuck with the snow rather than the trail back over to the Cirque. Then mostly dry ground straight down to the A Frame. My goal for the descent from here on was to run everything but not beat myself up too bad. My descent on 3/2 had crushed me. Felt like I was running super conservative compared to the PPM but I was flying compared to 3/2.

Filled up both bottles at Barr and carried both in my hands. Only treated one, the other was for dumping on myself. Since I had to give the treated bottle 20-30 minutes, I ended up drinking very little of it. But I mostly emptied the other bottle on my quads and neck, even though it wasn't all that hot out.

Did manage to run all the little uphills on the descent, but they were a grunt. I did walk whenever I passed other hikers/runners heading up or down. That got to be very frequent in the W's. Pushed just a bit to get under 5:30 but not too hard.

Felt pretty good after finishing. Except for one toe. It was painful for much of the descent, and I figured I'd end up with a decent blister. I stopped at one point to snug up my shoes to see if that would help, but I didn't want to spend the time putting anything on the blister. Turns out I got a small blister but also a purple/black toenail. Grr! I think I've maybe had this happen once before. Not sure. Hoping I don't lose the nail.

So, felt that the ascent was pretty slow overall. Even when I was hiking, I didn't feel like I was working very hard. A few times, I forced myself to pick up the effort, but I'm sure I let myself back off again. Just didn't feel like working hard on this day. Fairly encouraged by the descent. Even more encouraged that my legs were almost totally fine the next day, and I had no soreness two days later.

Did not use the Microspikes. I think I ate 3-4 Gus, 2/3's of a pack of Shot Bloks, a granola bar, and maybe a half dozen Endurolytes. Drank about 65 ounces of water. Actually, 20 ounces of that was with EFS drink mix.

Ended up jogging/walking another few miles later in the day taking the girls down to watch the Superior Morgul Classic crit races. That was pretty exhausting.

0:00:00 - Barr Trail TH
1:39:36 - Barr Camp
2:29:25 - A Frame
3:32:08 - Pikes summit (highest rocks in the middle)
3:38:42 - leaving the summit
4:06:14 - A Frame
4:32:51 - Barr Camp
4:34:14 - leaving Barr Camp
5:27:56 - Barr Trail TH

Suunto watch log data:

7210 up (+35), 7190 down (-65), 1 lap, 5:29

Crosslite2.0