Today was the second event in the Scott Cougar Mountain Series.  At least they called it an 8-mile event this year since last year it was billed as 7.5 miles, it is really 8.2 miles.  Christian and I volunteered together doing parking duty today and ran together again on what turned out to be a pretty perfect morning for running with cool temps and only a very light shower. Trails were in good shape throughout after a few mostly dry days in the area.   I opted for Merrell Trail Gloves on my feet just in case the rains came on hard like at Grand Ridge, did not want another slippery sandal incident.

We started out a little earlier in the pack this time and were moving along at a pretty good clip from the start on the road into the single track.  The first section of the course up the hill went faster since we were further up and didn’t have as many people to pass.  We hit the aid station, got a quick drink and charged up the trail to the junction with the Shy Bear loop, the new 3 mile portion.   We were not going too slow as we only saw Uli on the two-way portion of the trail before hitting the rolling loop.   OK, it wasn’t always rolling and at some point began a real climb where we did walk a bit of the really steep stuff.   Back out of the loop on onto the last mile we were moving along fast, passing a few people and not really getting passed.   Rolled into the finish in about 1:22 which was pretty much a dead-on 10 min/mile pace, much faster than our 11 min/mile pace at the Cougar 5 and my fastest pace for the year so far.

Knee felt great the whole time and my foot felt fine too, it was a good choice not to wear the Lunas today.   Next up – Taylor Mountain Half Marathon next weekend (I heard it is a mud pit so will probably be pulling out the BareGrip 200s) and then the Harding Hustle 15k in SoCal on July 7 where I will be back in the Lunas.