Thanks for the sound advice. But I didn’t follow it. 🙂

I couldn’t resist really. The trailhead was 20min from my Airbnb and at only 4.4m roundtrip I knew it wouldn’t represent too taxing a workout. Plus, it’s hard to find an “easy” 10m here in Leadville at 10000′ anyway. I’m also flying out the day after PPM so no chance to tag any 14ers post-race, even if my destroyed legs would let me.

FWIW here’s how it went. I did Mt Sherman from Iowa Gulch, the first quarter mile or so descends a bit, crosses a creek and then begins ascending a scree field for the remainder of the mile. Because of the steepness, traction was problematic in a few places and I was glad I opted to bring some poles with me (I don’t race PPM with poles). I kept HR bouncing between Z1 and Z2 and effort level felt fairly easy. Spent a few minutes chatting with a descending hiker gathering some intel on what was to come (previously, near the creek, I encountered a married couple saying that the mtn “destroyed them” and they had turned back when the scrambling got too rough). 1st mile completed in about 32min, with a total ascent of 741′.

After that, it was all climbing in the next mile, often scrambling up a rock/scree field with some extremely steep segments forcing me off-trail and onto rocks for better footing. Near the end of the mile it leveled off onto a saddle until the final summit at 14040ish feet. This mile included an astounding elevation gain of 1247 feet and I completed it in 42 minutes.

There was about .2m left to go to the actual summit, I hung out about 5min taking in the scenery and eating/drinking then made my descent. Unsurprisingly the descent was very easy cardio wise and I had the most trouble maintaining footing in the scree field, often “skiing” down sideways through steep sections. My total return only took about 50min, very little of it actually runnable which was fine as I didn’t want to overstress my legs.

I’m glad I did it. My Training-Peaks-like software (Sporttracks) rated the workout pretty similar to what I had scheduled for the day so given the fact I didn’t injure myself I call it a win.

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I figured the likelihood of a response was low given the quick timeframe but thought ‘ya never know’ and I got lucky and Aamm saw the post and responded. Obviously I would’ve liked to have pre-thought this scenario weeks in advance but that was kinda the point of the question, I found myself in this scenario and thought should I or shouldn’t I?

And I probably stated my post poorly, I wasn’t expecting that particular workout/ascent to magically add any fitness, just that it wouldn’t hurt my situation. Turns out it was a good fit and I’m very glad I ended up doing it. Sometimes you have to just grab an opportunity when it presents itself.