Mon 9/1 - AM 65 minutes, up Mt. Greylock

Up the mountain for the umpteenth time. The end result was favorable for me, but as per usual this is to a large extent a reflection of the relatively weak field. In fact I woke up after a reasonably good night of sleep to feel heavy with fatigue, accumulated from the past week of course. All the anxiety driven pre-waking of the morning alarm leaves a mark. Nothing about the very short warmup in sticky conditions did anything to dispel this. When the early leader appeared to be stretching his advantage as we hit the switchbacks in the second mile, I thought I was done for. In fact I was almost ready to pack it in at 15 minutes. Within 10 minutes however I found myself in the lead without trying to do so and played keep away the rest of the way. Made a conscious effort not to overdo it and bust myself on the middle climbs. Found the flattish stretch before the final corkscrew to be even longer than I remembered, but at least that final mile or so went by relatively quickly. Finished feeling fairly spent but not utterly depleted as in the past. Held something back it seemed. Sticky at the summit as well, and fairly gross by the time I got back down on the bike around noon.