A whole nother level...

It became obvious yesterday that things had changed for us. We are simply not on the same level with our hiking as we were last year.

The peak we use to make sure we are prepared for the 14 season is Green Mountain in Boulder. It's got similar stats as 14ers only it tops out at a lower elevation, maybe 9ish. This allows you to get up as soon as that snow melts enough and get in a good simulation on elevation gain, terrain, distance, and so on.

Angie and I have spent the last 2 months working on cleaning up our diet and making moves that bring us just a little closer to athletes than hobbyists. Granted we are never going to be professional climbers but we are doing things that have pushed us to another level. We have a recovery strategy, training plans, constantly examine our fuel options while climbing, gear, supplements, diet, and we have already started talking about our off season training plans for later in this year after we are done climbing the peaks we have not even climbed yet.

These things happen gradually and it's not like a head slapping moment to point at and say "wow, we are pretty serious". But the fact remains we are fairly serious. Somebody asked me to try a cake or something at a restaurant in April and I remember saying it sounds good, I'll go try it in October. The reply was "October?"... And it's funny when you realize that your thinking has changed. How it's totally normal to say something sounds good and you will eat it in 6 months because right now it doesn't fit into your training schedule.

Anyhow none of this is what turned on the light switch for me this is:

Last year we climbed Green in 6 hours. The suggested time to do it is 5 hours. We didn't think much of that because Angie got a little irked by the exposure early on in that hike and we had to stop a few times until she got that worked out. So we were keen to see what kind of time we would turn out this year. The weather was rough yesterday. Very misty and foggy. About 3/4 of the way up it started to sprinkle on us and it got cold. Conditions were bleak and the discomfort level was elevated. At some point I could not see anything and had to take off my glasses...then I couldn't see anything. :)

At a point around 30 min from the summit we started asking the "how much longer" question, normal for these things and also normal we pushed on past the complaining and made the summit. Visibility was nil..like 20' before total fog clouds so there are no pics of this summit.

After a slow and cautious descent due to slippery wet rock we made it back to the car and the moment of truth was here. I took a look at the time...


If we made another 6 hour trip (and it felt like 10) the time would be 4:15.
If we had made the 5 hour suggested time would be 3:15.

I was hoping we made under 3pm to beat the suggested time so with that I hit the button on my phone to check the time....

1:45 ....    A little less than 3.5 hours...

Uhmmm yeah, we are not the same hikers we were last year. Chopping our time by almost 50% in bad conditions.

This year should be interesting....very interesting.