Breck Epic: Stage 2 - Colorado Trail
I had trouble sleeping after Stage 1. I hate that feeling of being so exhausted but not being able to fall asleep. I looked at the clock at 1am and dreaded having to get up at 5am -sometime after 1am i managed to fall asleep.
My routine for the next 5 days was get up and eat at 5am. Lay back down for 30 minutes. Load up my aid bags. My sister would run them down to the venue by 7am. Check my tire pressure, lube my chain, load up my camelback. Head to the venue @7:30am for the 8:10am start. Spin around for a few minutes. Then race.
I was wearing my leaders jersey this morning and it felt a little weird as many other racers made nice comments about it. I was still not feeling like a "winner" but I managed to thank everyone without apologizing for being slow. I now felt a little more anxiety. Now that I had the leaders jersey I wanted to KEEP it. I didn't know what Alison Jones looked like and I saw a woman that might be my age. (Actually it's hard to tell how old people are due to the fact some are very weathered by the sun and they look older than they really are...) The woman in question was riding a Santa Cruz and I noticed she had a gravity dropper on her bike. I didn't get a chance to talk to her so I didn't know if that was her.
This was also the start of the 3-dayer so there were many more people lined up.
Today I was on the Specialized Era. I haven't been digging the 2x10 gearing on this bike and had felt like I struggle quite a bit on the really steep climbs but the Blacksheep hardtail was with the mechanic as he was re-stans-ing my rear wheel and putting on new rubber since my rear tire was un-fixable.
We started off on an old favorite - the beginning part of Fall Classic course which includes a little ride up Heinous Hill. I had pre-ridden most of this course with my friend, Cat Bywaters the previous month and knew I was i in for...a TON of climbing which luckily means a lot of fast descending. I was looking forward to the CT West Ridge and Red Trail descents.
So day 2 was similar to day 1. I had Molly to gauge my progress. She disappeared up the climb on Heinous, I caught her on the rubble strewn descent into Aid 1. The good thing about getting to the Aid Stations was seeing the volunteers and my friends. Last year I had worked the aid stations and met some really cool ladies from Canada. Tracy and Meegan. They would cheer for me when I arrived at the aid stations - that always lifted my spirits. In addition, Mike Kane was working aid two. He'd always ready with a smile, an encouraging word and his camera to capture me "in action". ;)
After aid 1 Molly rode away from me on the CT climb - I caught her on the Red Tail descent. We made our way up Vomit Hill with Molly in the lead, I let it rip on the descent. It's then a moderate climb up the CT back to the Dredge trailhead. I saw a gentleman struggling with the sharp switchbacks on the CT (the ones that start at the Tiger Run Trailer park) and said "some switchbacks, eh?" and he said "some COURSE!" I was guessing he was a 3-dayer. As I rode past him I laughed and said "yep - there's plenty more of that to come too - let me know if you need to pass me back".
After the Dredge parking lot it was up Gold Hill and on to the toxic forest. Here it just sucked - to me it was a soul-sucking rooty climb of 11%. I knew I was close to the finish but the climb was getting the best of me. I had to alternate walking and riding. I had company on this part as a few riders were struggling with it too. FINALLY it ended - I passed a big, strapping red-headed guy in a white kit on some mine tailings close to the finish. He looked like he was suffering pretty good - I said 'less than 2 miles to the finish - hang on!"
I finally rolled into the finish. I was happy to see my sister there waiting for me.
I never saw Molly after Vomit hill. I knew she said she was bonking a bit. I hoped she was able to recover from the bonk - I hung around waiting for her for ~10 or 15 minutes and then gave up and had Trisha drive me home.
Same routine - Recovery drink, shower, ice bath, more food and then off to the mandatory racer meeting at 5pm.
I checked results. Today I was 1.5 hours faster than Alison. I breathed a small sigh of relief. Yesterday I didn't know if the 1st day was a fluke and if the time difference between us was abnormal but it looked like as long as I kept my consistent pace and didn't have any mechanicals I had a good shot of winning the race.
But then I felt a little bad - I mean I had some amazing advantages that I'm sure that Alision didn't. I had been training for 9 months with the best endurance coach in the country. I'm familiar with the trails and I have trained and spent a lot of time at altitude. I now felt like I had an unfair advantage. I was really impressed with this person I hadn't yet met. I can't imagine how hard it is being a 50+ year old woman and coming to a place you've never ridden and do a 6 day race. Like me (and I certainly wasn't setting any speed records) she was pounding out mile-after-hard earned mile to complete the stage. You got to hand it to her - she has a ton of courage, detemination and guts.
Looking at the results I was super happy to see Sonya Looney had won the stage and padded her lead in the pro-womens field. She's was an amazing 2.5 hours faster than me (very humbling to say the least) It was a tough field and Sonya had definitely had her(very public) ups and downs this race season. In this field was Selene Yeager - they raced against each other earlier in the season in PA. Sonya didn't have her best race in PA so I was happy to see that she had convincing wins over Selene the first 2 days. I love Sonya - she's a really great person in all aspects and I feel very lucky to consider her a friend. I was hoping she'd savor the success she was having.
After the racer meeting - a guy comes up to me and said "congratulations on your win". I said "thank you" and *almost* added 'but I'm so slow'. I'm glad I didn't say that because then he said "you passed me today and you looked like you were riding well - good job". He was the gentlemen at I talked to on the CT switchbacks. Whoa - that was a lesson learned...be gracious and don't badmouth myself!
it was super cool to earn a 2nd green jersey - Sonya had to prompt to me race my arms but my sister didn't quite get the shot. so funny.
My routine for the next 5 days was get up and eat at 5am. Lay back down for 30 minutes. Load up my aid bags. My sister would run them down to the venue by 7am. Check my tire pressure, lube my chain, load up my camelback. Head to the venue @7:30am for the 8:10am start. Spin around for a few minutes. Then race.
I was wearing my leaders jersey this morning and it felt a little weird as many other racers made nice comments about it. I was still not feeling like a "winner" but I managed to thank everyone without apologizing for being slow. I now felt a little more anxiety. Now that I had the leaders jersey I wanted to KEEP it. I didn't know what Alison Jones looked like and I saw a woman that might be my age. (Actually it's hard to tell how old people are due to the fact some are very weathered by the sun and they look older than they really are...) The woman in question was riding a Santa Cruz and I noticed she had a gravity dropper on her bike. I didn't get a chance to talk to her so I didn't know if that was her.
This was also the start of the 3-dayer so there were many more people lined up.
Today I was on the Specialized Era. I haven't been digging the 2x10 gearing on this bike and had felt like I struggle quite a bit on the really steep climbs but the Blacksheep hardtail was with the mechanic as he was re-stans-ing my rear wheel and putting on new rubber since my rear tire was un-fixable.
We started off on an old favorite - the beginning part of Fall Classic course which includes a little ride up Heinous Hill. I had pre-ridden most of this course with my friend, Cat Bywaters the previous month and knew I was i in for...a TON of climbing which luckily means a lot of fast descending. I was looking forward to the CT West Ridge and Red Trail descents.
So day 2 was similar to day 1. I had Molly to gauge my progress. She disappeared up the climb on Heinous, I caught her on the rubble strewn descent into Aid 1. The good thing about getting to the Aid Stations was seeing the volunteers and my friends. Last year I had worked the aid stations and met some really cool ladies from Canada. Tracy and Meegan. They would cheer for me when I arrived at the aid stations - that always lifted my spirits. In addition, Mike Kane was working aid two. He'd always ready with a smile, an encouraging word and his camera to capture me "in action". ;)
 | |
| Here's a pic from Mike of me at aid 2. what a dork - | I look like Willis of "different strokes" |
After aid 1 Molly rode away from me on the CT climb - I caught her on the Red Tail descent. We made our way up Vomit Hill with Molly in the lead, I let it rip on the descent. It's then a moderate climb up the CT back to the Dredge trailhead. I saw a gentleman struggling with the sharp switchbacks on the CT (the ones that start at the Tiger Run Trailer park) and said "some switchbacks, eh?" and he said "some COURSE!" I was guessing he was a 3-dayer. As I rode past him I laughed and said "yep - there's plenty more of that to come too - let me know if you need to pass me back".
After the Dredge parking lot it was up Gold Hill and on to the toxic forest. Here it just sucked - to me it was a soul-sucking rooty climb of 11%. I knew I was close to the finish but the climb was getting the best of me. I had to alternate walking and riding. I had company on this part as a few riders were struggling with it too. FINALLY it ended - I passed a big, strapping red-headed guy in a white kit on some mine tailings close to the finish. He looked like he was suffering pretty good - I said 'less than 2 miles to the finish - hang on!"
I finally rolled into the finish. I was happy to see my sister there waiting for me.
 |
| day 2 - done! whew! |
Same routine - Recovery drink, shower, ice bath, more food and then off to the mandatory racer meeting at 5pm.
I checked results. Today I was 1.5 hours faster than Alison. I breathed a small sigh of relief. Yesterday I didn't know if the 1st day was a fluke and if the time difference between us was abnormal but it looked like as long as I kept my consistent pace and didn't have any mechanicals I had a good shot of winning the race.
But then I felt a little bad - I mean I had some amazing advantages that I'm sure that Alision didn't. I had been training for 9 months with the best endurance coach in the country. I'm familiar with the trails and I have trained and spent a lot of time at altitude. I now felt like I had an unfair advantage. I was really impressed with this person I hadn't yet met. I can't imagine how hard it is being a 50+ year old woman and coming to a place you've never ridden and do a 6 day race. Like me (and I certainly wasn't setting any speed records) she was pounding out mile-after-hard earned mile to complete the stage. You got to hand it to her - she has a ton of courage, detemination and guts.
Looking at the results I was super happy to see Sonya Looney had won the stage and padded her lead in the pro-womens field. She's was an amazing 2.5 hours faster than me (very humbling to say the least) It was a tough field and Sonya had definitely had her(very public) ups and downs this race season. In this field was Selene Yeager - they raced against each other earlier in the season in PA. Sonya didn't have her best race in PA so I was happy to see that she had convincing wins over Selene the first 2 days. I love Sonya - she's a really great person in all aspects and I feel very lucky to consider her a friend. I was hoping she'd savor the success she was having.
After the racer meeting - a guy comes up to me and said "congratulations on your win". I said "thank you" and *almost* added 'but I'm so slow'. I'm glad I didn't say that because then he said "you passed me today and you looked like you were riding well - good job". He was the gentlemen at I talked to on the CT switchbacks. Whoa - that was a lesson learned...be gracious and don't badmouth myself!
it was super cool to earn a 2nd green jersey - Sonya had to prompt to me race my arms but my sister didn't quite get the shot. so funny.
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| working on the podium pose. ;) |
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