Yesterday was my eighth time running up Grays and Torreys from Bakersville in the past eight weeks. After coming back from a summer spent at sea level, and initially thinking altitude was no big deal, I've been heading up to Bakersville once a week. I've grown to really enjoy this run, although I'm never super excited when I initially head out - the run up the road, the suffering, etc. However, after the initial warmup I've grown to like the overall run, distance, and vertical gain. It is one of the only runs I know of that allows for 5,300' of gain in one single go. My goal has been to get myself accustomed to this type of run so that I have no recovery issues, and can put in a solid effort the following day. I think if I can bang this run out regularly and then feel good the next day, I'll start to gain some solid fitness. My times so far have been: 3:30, 3:25, 3:21, 3:25, 3:23, 3:30, 3:34. The last two slowed down because there has been either snow or ice on the trail. Yesterday, I threw in the northeast ridge of Kelso Mountain, which adds a fun class 2/3 ridge of about 1,800' to the overall vertical gain. The distance, however, stays the same (14.5 miles rt). It took me 4:30. The winter season is fast approaching - there were high winds yesterday that made me literally crawl on all fours at times, anywhere from no snow to 6 plus inches on the trail, ice, etc. In the back of my mind I'm hoping to keep this up all winter, but we will see. I only got one photo from yesterday because my stupid camera batteries died (and the backup set I had).
The below photo is from our condo early one morning last week. 
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