This morning, Jake and I woke up at 4am to make the Kite Lake Triple in its second year. We wanted to meet everyone at the coffeehouse before but took too long to get ready and turned back at one point because we forgot things. So we arrived at the trailhead at 7:30 and waited for the 8am start.
It was crazy flippin freezing even at the bottom of the hill and I ended up wearing every single piece of clothing I recently bought for winter running. Had I not, I know Jake might have had some things to help me, but holy hell am I so glad I got everything I did and that STP delivered SO quickly.
I wasn't sure how the cold would affect my lungs, especially after Thursday's failed attempt at running in it. But surprisingly my Buff was enough to warm my breath and I didn't need to use Jake's crazy mountaineering balaclava.
READY. SET. GO!
I decided to jog to where it got super steep, you can almost see it in the picture above as that peak was number one to climb, Democrat. About 2000 ft elevation climb to over 14,000 ft. Pretty much walked the entire time up and had to take quite a few breaks from my calves burning. My shoes did really well with steep cliffs and all the rocks. But we hit some slippery river rocks and patches of ice and it was a matter of slipping as gracefully as possible. The trail was almost all entirely rocks which was really hard for me to navigate down even though I usually rock at technical terrain and downhills (still have to work on my knees though).
At the top we received our first token. One token per peak which was entered into a raffle at the end for a lot of cool shit.
I wasn't sure how the cold would affect my lungs, especially after Thursday's failed attempt at running in it. But surprisingly my Buff was enough to warm my breath and I didn't need to use Jake's crazy mountaineering balaclava.
READY. SET. GO!
I decided to jog to where it got super steep, you can almost see it in the picture above as that peak was number one to climb, Democrat. About 2000 ft elevation climb to over 14,000 ft. Pretty much walked the entire time up and had to take quite a few breaks from my calves burning. My shoes did really well with steep cliffs and all the rocks. But we hit some slippery river rocks and patches of ice and it was a matter of slipping as gracefully as possible. The trail was almost all entirely rocks which was really hard for me to navigate down even though I usually rock at technical terrain and downhills (still have to work on my knees though).
At the top we received our first token. One token per peak which was entered into a raffle at the end for a lot of cool shit.
Then we had to climb down the same way and up to the next peak, Cameron. It was step down and again steep up. Jake stayed back to take pictures, but I rad ahead and waited for him at the top. We also had to climb the side the wind was blowing from and some gusts felt like they would topple me over, and at times it was through some of that ice pack snow, so there were mini heart attacks along the way thinking I'd fall off the cliff face.
After Cameron, Lincoln was straight ahead (hidden behind when looking from Base Camp) and Bross to the right. Lincoln was a pretty easy climb and I was able to run until it got steep and a little too snowy. Also on the side of strong winds, the side of my face was so numb and cold on the way up. And when I'd stop jogging, I'd get dizzy. For some reason I forgot to copy those pictures of the trail that Jake got, but I bet he'll post on his blog: here (it's currently under construction, but he said he'd get it up and blog about the race tonight, so hopefully so!)
I had to wait quite a while for Jake to catch up here. He was taking lots of pictures. But once there, we did our picture taking and I took off. I was sick of waiting at this point, so I told myself at Bross, I'd take a selfie and race downhill to the finish.
My selfie was here because we weren't allowed at the top of Bross for a long dumb reason I read about online just now, this was the turn point to start heading down. I missed the token here because I had no idea where it was at and probably ran right past it after hearing it was down the trail a little. At this point, the wind wasn't bad but there was quite a bit of snow and parts where it was only wide enough for one foot. Though it was powder and my shoes seemed to be okay in it, I was going a little too fast for my skill and slipped a few times falling all the way to my ass. The rest of the hill was not only steep as shit but gravely/rocky and it didn't matter what shoes you had, you were going to slide down surfing style.
Two ladies passed me here and I was shocked, because it never happens. But then I passed about 5 people and felt okay after that. I knew time was getting close though so I really pushed. More trips and falls, especially with ice, but finally we got to a point where the wind was blocked and started to warm up. I took off my Buff finally and felt a little more balanced so I trudged through faster. I was soooo happy when we finally hit normal technical single track dirt and really ran after that. It felt amazing!
Finally hitting the starting trail, crossing two rivers (without falling into water each time woot!) I hit the tent and called my time: 3:33. Awesome! The limit was four hours and all I cared about was finishing under that! I had no idea how much I'd b able to run and I even had it in my head that it was possible I couldn't do more than one peak. I mean, this was my first attempt at an altitude climb because before today, I'm pretty sure Mammoth was the highest I'd ever been at 11,000 ft. And I went to run it! Wasn't able to do a whole LOT of running, but whatever, I've only started this trail running business 3 months ago! I'm proud of myself and how exciting will next year be when I've got a year of running under my belt?!
Two ladies passed me here and I was shocked, because it never happens. But then I passed about 5 people and felt okay after that. I knew time was getting close though so I really pushed. More trips and falls, especially with ice, but finally we got to a point where the wind was blocked and started to warm up. I took off my Buff finally and felt a little more balanced so I trudged through faster. I was soooo happy when we finally hit normal technical single track dirt and really ran after that. It felt amazing!
Finally hitting the starting trail, crossing two rivers (without falling into water each time woot!) I hit the tent and called my time: 3:33. Awesome! The limit was four hours and all I cared about was finishing under that! I had no idea how much I'd b able to run and I even had it in my head that it was possible I couldn't do more than one peak. I mean, this was my first attempt at an altitude climb because before today, I'm pretty sure Mammoth was the highest I'd ever been at 11,000 ft. And I went to run it! Wasn't able to do a whole LOT of running, but whatever, I've only started this trail running business 3 months ago! I'm proud of myself and how exciting will next year be when I've got a year of running under my belt?!
I think Jake came in over a half hour after me. Because he was over 4 hours, he didn't put his tokens in either. But when a woman came in at the end of the raffle, they told her to put in the [poker]chips, so we did too! We didn't win anything at the end unfortunately, but we did get a shirt each!!