Leaving Carson it's still three miles to the high point of the course, Coney Peak. With some more of the terrifying snow crossings, though they're not so bad anymore since the sun had finally heated things up. I continue upward, still kicking ass on this huge climb.
Finally, after six hours of playing in the mountains, I reach the top of Coney. And I still feel real strong. I think back to last year, when I was basically dead in the water at this point of the race (it took me 15:47 to finish last year - 118th place out of 120 finishers). Feels real good that all the hard training I've been doing over the last several months is paying off - just in time.
I take a moment at Coney to check out the surroundings. It's a beautiful day and all I can see around me are more mountains. Life is good.
My goal heading into this race was to get a Cannibal hat - a blue rimmed finishers hat given to those who break twelve hours. The past two years I had gotten the green rimmed Survivor hat (finishing between 12 and 16 hours - in 2006 I ran 13:30 here) and I thought it was time to upgrade. And even though I would have to pull a negative split to reach that goal, I thought I had a good chance to do just that - I was feeling strong and the two biggest climbs of the race were behind me.
I took off running along the continental divide. You run for a few miles along the divide here before dropping down a big hill into the Divide aid station. Last year along the divide I was reduced to a slow walk through a bad lightning storm, not my proudest moment.
It struck me here that even though I was well above treeline, the high altitude was having no effect on me at all. Guess all those trips up Pikes Peak were worth it.
Finally hitting the Divide aid station, I force myself to eat. And I eat a ton - ham and cheese sandwiches, twix and snickers bars, chips, pickles, and wash it down with several cups of mountain dew. Yum yum.
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