Figured with spring upon us and the trails now looking more open, we can get the FKT smack talk going.
Schlarb set the FKT today for the so called "Middle Route” on Green. He notes:
After GZ's motivational/putting me on the spot comment yesterday, I felt like it was the morning of a race. Right off the bat the legs felt tired as did the body. Last week was totally different from the start as the legs were strong and I felt fresh. I started to rationalizing how last weeks 124 miles was affecting me, Tuesday's intervals, etc... I honestly considered going up Ranger to avoid the disapointment of not running faster than last week's 36:47 on this route.
I held strong to the idea that a painful start could still mean a good overal performance. If I wasn't under 15 minutes at Green Mtn Lodge, I'd run up Ranger instead though.
14:25 at the lodge, looks like I was running fast (faster than last week). First mile split was 12min low. The second mile felt the opposite of the first, I felt strong and confident. Second mile split was 9min low. Things continued to go well and coming up to the last .6 miles, which is the hardest for me, I was feeling confident. I kept the legs moving but was hurting. I know I have an extra gear on this steeper terrain, but right now, I don't have it. I kept things going and snow only slowed me down a little bit on the last few switchbacks after the stairs. I was giving myself motivationsl comments out loud, to get through the last section. Hurting.
To the post I hit 35:56, a new personal record and Fastest Known Time (FKT) for this route, my favorite for training purposes, by 8 seconds and 49 seconds faster than last week. Very happy.
This route, for what it is worth is almost exactly 3.1 miles, 5k. This is what the elevation profile looks like.
It gains about 2200 feet (plus), but the grades are highly variable. The lower section of Greenman is super runable, and really fast … where as some of the early stuff in Gregory is much more challenging in terms of grade (some sections reaching near 30 percent) and footing (all runable, but not the new sweetly buffed OSMP stuff).
Congrats Jason for being the first guy to register a sub 36 on this. Now let’s see who can break that.
