Finish after an hour of rain, still smiling.
I had plans for June 5 that involved finding clear skies somewhere in the NW and photographing the transit of Venus in front of the sun. The jet stream had another plan and headed south causing a huge storm to swing in from San Francisco to British Columbia blocking out the sun all the way to Montana. Realizing I was stuck in the clouds I decided to just do Evergreen’s Solstice 5-mile run at Grand Ridge instead since I had to run anyway.
It rained pretty much all morning with showers in the afternoon and then it dumped hard while I was driving over to the trailhead, going to be a wet one. I had my Trail Gloves and BareGrips in the car figuring I’d decide which to wear when I got there. I had my Lunas on as I jogged over to registration and I got a bit of encouragement to just wear them. Figuring that my feet would be wet no matter what, I decided to be a bit badass and run the steep and wet Ridge in the Luna Leadvilles, it would be a good test of the limits of these things.
The flat start was no problem, my feet got wet. The big climb up to the first turn was pretty good too, I passed a lot of the people that flew by me at the start. There were a few moments where the sole would slip around when I was on the edge of the trail trying to pass but they had plenty of grip for ascending. The up and down leg on the lower loop was a little more challenging, this stretch has some nasty rocky sections on downhills that were tricky to get through without slowing way down. Creek crossings – no problem, just run on through and clean the haunches off a bit. Puddles – same, just run right through. This was rather freeing, I didn’t have to even try to keep my feet dry, they were soaked so I could splash away.
The uphill portion of the loop was again pretty easy and again I passed most of the people who had passed me on some of the tricky downhills. Finally I hit the end of the loop and started the big downhill back to the flat last stretch. I figured that I’d be getting passed like crazy on this section but most of it was easy enough to keep going full speed aside from a few tricky sections where I had to slow down and watch my foot placement closely to avoid sliding around. I only had two people pass me on the whole mile downhill run. On the flat I just picked up the cadence where one guy sprinted by early on but no one else caught me. Crossed the finish at 59:58, finishing 22/43 runners.
Would I wear the Lunas again in steep, rocky, wet conditions? I think for short distances yes. I don’t think I’d want to do a half marathon in those conditions in them, I’m not that badass yet. The hardest part was how slippery the footbed gets when soaking wet or cornered in slippery mud, if there was a better non-slick surface there they would be great, maybe surfboard wax… I was definitely slower than had I worn the BareGrips because I needed to be way more careful in a few sections of trail. On the plus side, they are just so much fun to run in and so freeing. Even at the end of the run I could just walk into the creek and clean my feet and “shoes” in a better of seconds.
Next up – Cougar 8 on the 16th.