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Hammer Hunt

August 11, 2015 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Weather: hot, humid, SMOKEY!

Comments:
Hammer led tonight on a moderately attended hunt:

OGs: me, Lewis, Dan-o
Hammer, CA, Emily

Did the constituional. I could feel the conditions about a mile in, as the HR crept into the 130s, then 140 by the time we hit headwaters. I fell way back on the grind uphill, as Hammer et all led the charge. We then headed north on the rolling Ridgeline, where I easily caught them on the downs. Then we took the new cutoff trail toward Baldy, which is about 150-200' of downhill. Well by then, we were running like 8 pace downhill, which is just stupid...so I just blew past everyone.

It's against Rule 1 of the hunt: never go past the hunt leader, but there's some caveats built into hunt protocol: that you "do what you need", and quite frankly, I need to practice running downhill moderately fast and not blow it by braking down. So I did.

I rankled Lewis and Hammer a bit, and I allowed them to charge past as I shuffled up the climb toward Baldy. I told em, "I see ya in a mile!" - on the similarly steep descent of Baldy - which rankled them more, causing them to flat-out GRIND up Baldy. CA hung back, and Emily was, in general, falling off the back of the grindfest.

Both CA and I hiked up the upper part of Baldy, with sky-high HRs - SO SMOKEY. It's rolling in from 4 fires south of Eugene, and it's bad every night. Stopped to let CA deuce then we descended moderately quick to the Spring Blvd TH, where the group waited for us...but they then pulled away on the ensuing ups.

I dunno, I don't really care...I'm just doing what I need. If they wanna continue to "gray zone tempo" every flat and up - and shuffle the downs - I'm not going to try to convince them, otherwise. But it's pretty stupid and habit-forming. It's just bad running.