training comes to an end

It's here already? Josh and I headed up to the summit again for 3 down and 3 up as our last training session before the Ascent. I had my fastest time going down, not that it matters, but it felt pretty good. I grabbed a GU from Josh at treeline and then headed back up. He followed and quickly passed me in the first mile. I didn't see him again until I got to the summit. I didn't eat anything for breakfast and that turned out to be a huge mistake. The GU probably got me through the first mile or so and I felt weak before I hit the Cirque. I knocked off the first two miles up in 26 and 25 minutes respectively, but fell apart in the last mile. I finally crawled up 39 minutes later and walked past a poor soul looking at his breakfast in a puddle on the ground. I guess he pushed it a little harder than I did. While it wasn't the greatest workout, a valuable lesson was learned. Even if you eat enough pasta for two the night before, it's still a good idea to get something in your stomach in the morning before training.

The only thing that's left is to rest this week and make sure I'm 100% physically for Saturday morning. The nerves are starting to creep up a little, but I'm pretty confident about my preparation for the race. We are planning on eating a bunch of spaghetti on Friday night and I will be hitting the sack mad early so I can get up, head to Manitou, and get my last mental training session in about an hour before race time.

See you after the Ascent!