And again the Mt Wilson loop....

Got up this morning, like last week, at 0 dark thirty, slurped down a couple espressos and off to the Sam Merrill trailhead.  Same run as last week, the 27 mile loop over Mt Wilson returning via the toll road and Idlehour.  Today I did it in 5:41 all-in including stops to fill bottles and pump water from the stream (the GPS ran out of juice at Idlehour so I dont know the exact runtime);  so it was about 20 minutes faster than last week...due in part I'm sure to the fact that it was also a fair bit cooler (77F at noon vs 90F last week).  I ran pretty much everything except the first mile (warm up).  I felt strong during the run and  OK after although like last week my feet feel battered and generally speaking I feel pretty worked over.  Its a tough loop.  My knees hurt off and on during some of the uphills and downhills but they felt OK after the run, not like last fall when they stiffened up afterwords running in ASICs.

Yesterday I did the trail maintenance requirement for AC100 with "Uncle Hal" and 24 other race entrants.  It was a terrific day with great, earthy, bawdy folks;  great to hear Uncle Hal's war stories as well.  Spend 8 hrs on my feet and trudged about 7 miles carrying fairly heavy tools.  A good feet-toughening workout.