Top of Bear Peak

After another fun night at the Red Fox Inn last night and probably a few too many Guinesses, V one of the bartenders is just too good at pouring them, it’s hard to not have another, I was a bit slow this morning. It’s my own fault but it was worth it to see old friends last night and hang out with my Vermont second family the Logan’s. Probably, one of the nicest families I know. Cindy’s pies are also some of the best in the state, her PBR (Peaches, Blueberries, and Raspberries) Pie is my favorite, not sure what I like better the taste or the name!

I got back home this morning and was a bit sluggish, lack of sleep and a lot of barley and hops slowed me down this morning. However, it’s not an excuse to not go outside and get in my long day. The goal today was to go 18 miles. We ended just over 16 miles by my best estimates, plotting it out on a map post hike/jog.

Vermont is awesome today!

I was joined by two fellow local Spartan Beast racers. The three of us together were like the Three Stooges and spent most of the trek talking about everything from the race to nutrition to people we know. It wasn’t Larry and Curly with me on the hike but we certainly had a good time Everyone seems to have a little piece of knowledge about what the course will be, so we pooled our collective information and tried to make a hike out of it at first then just added extra miles for the second half. Eden works for Killington at the horseback riding stable at Pico and TJ lives and works in Rutland. Two very different racers, TJ has competed in several Ironmans and Eden is just doing the race to see if she can. She has been on an amazing weight loss/fitness journey and has lost over 65 pounds since she began a couple months ago. Truly amazing!

So we met at the Snowshed parking lot and set off for a hike. I won’t bore you with all the details but along the way we hit top of Superstar, Bear Peak, Top of Snowshed, top of K1 (Killington Peak), top of Superstar again, top of Bear again, top of Snowshed and finally back down to the snowshed base area. Basically, we went all over the place. I’ll give you a few highlights.

Looking up Outer Limits. It’s Steep!

TRAIL HIKE/RUN
Total Distance: Just over 16 Miles
Total Time: 4:30
Vertical: A Lot (no GPS today)

Hiking down Outer Limits, the steepest mogul trail in the East, yes it’s steep and extremely overgrown, the cuts on my legs prove it. It took us forever to get down this part of the mountain. The three of us did our best not to keep falling on our asses. One of the rumors is we will be going up or down or both this trail. Get ready to get scraped up. We eventually ended up in the woods as it was easier to hike down than on the trial. At one point the growth was so high it was over our heads!

Female Ski Bum, aka Merisa was running down the mountain with two dogs. She is always a blast to see and makes me laugh all the time! By the way she was running in a skirt. Nice job Merisa, keeping it stylish on the mountain!

Top of K1 (Killington Peak). So you can get up to the top of the Peak three ways, by foot, by bike & foot, or by gondola. The three of us reached the top of the peak about three and a half hours into the run. It was funny as the two had not been to the peak before or at least a long time. The view is basically, amazing. I have posted pictures before. As our sweaty and probably smelly asses at this point reached the top we met tons of tourist who all

Google Earth Shot

looked chipper, clean and dry. I think we were the only ones who had actually hiked up to the top of the mountain. My favorite was the man with Khaki shorts and a polo shirt on, great hiking gear. It was funny at the top of the mountain we, the hikers, stuck out. We paused on the top for the two to take pictures before heading down to finish out the run. I feel like unless you put in the work to get to the top you can’t fully appreciate the view.

Mountain Bikers, did I mention the mountain is open for mountain biking. Several times along the way we had to dart off the trail as the bikers came quizzing by going downhill. A family of four passed us and it wasn’t until the second time we all caught up that I realized it was one of my former athletes with her family. Always funny to see the kids out of school.

Topo of Hike

Most of today was a hike we did jog/run the last 5-6 miles that were downhill. Overall, it was great. It was the furthest Eden had ever hiked/run, congrats to her on accomplishing a new feat! She even might go out on my Sunday night hike tomorrow. Which would be sweet. It is awesome to see someone make sure huge changes in her life in a short period of time. Eden was worried prior to the hike if she could finish the race or not. I think she knows now that she can definitely finish it and probably so better than she thinks!