Jun ditched me at work today (for good reason), so rather than run around work I decided that I would stop by Mueller park on my way home and hit that up. I've only run it a few times, but I quickly checked to see what my fastest previous time was before I left. 1:11 last year around this same time. I knew that I wanted to beat that, and I knew that my real goal for this course would be under an hour - which is totally do-able on the dirt, but a little more of a challenge in the snow. Felt pretty good going up, but tight. I had done box jumps, lunges and other random crap to my legs yesterday, so they were sore in places they aren't used to! As I got nearer to the top, I thought I was closer than I was, and figured if I could hit the top in 35 minutes, I could easily get under an hour. So I pushed it hard thinking that the end was right around the corner, but in fact I still had at least a quarter mile more - I burned out a little too soon and ended up going pretty slow up the last little climb before the end. Got there in 38 something. Took a few minutes to hang out up there, it was pretty much the only spot on the entire trail that got any sun, so it felt nice. Heading back down I kept trying to do calculations in my head, and figured at the very least, I'd like to split the difference between and hour and 1:11 - so like 1:05, 06. I really tried to push it going down, and in the snow it just seems like you can only go so fast! As I got closer I thought that 1:03 would be a solid time, so I really pushed hard the last mile and came up at 1:02:29 - almost exactly 9 minutes off my previous time! I'll take it. My face was completely numb by the end! I guess that's where the Yule beard comes in handy! Trail conditions were good, well tracked all the way up, a little sloppier though as you get higher.
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