Thursday: Landed in Denver, tossed bags into the back of the convertible and off to Jimmy’s for the night.
Friday: Lunch with Molly (a friend who does IT work at Colorado Legal Services in Denver). Talked about her imminent bike trip from Bellingham, WA to San Diego, CA. Impressive! Back at Jimmy’s, I finished some gear packing and then headed off to Breckenridge. I was gasping for oxygen as I fell asleep at 9,500 ft.
Kristi didn't finish last year.
Saturday: Met up with Kristi (racer friend from two years ago) and had a long casual breakfast. Then we scoped out the house that we would be staying in. We were told it wouldn’t be ready until 2pm, but I had checked it out the night before and it looked like no one was there. So we went over, went inside and it was VERY nice. So, knowing that we had access, we headed to the store to buy a weeks worth of groceries. Kristi was only doing the 3 day version of the Breck Epic (called the Epic-curious) but she seemed to buy as much food as I did. Buying food for when you are racing is almost as much fun as food shopping when you’re really hungry!
This is the basement. Nice digs. With the sofas there was room for even more people!
When we got back to the house to unload the groceries, Eric, the guy who had organized the renting of the house was there. Kristi knows Dan, Dan hooked Kristi up with a spot in the house with Eric and his wife. There was an extra bed, that’s how I got in. In addition to Eric and his wife Mary, and Kristi and Dan and myself, there was also Rebecca. Rebecca and Mary were racing as a Duo Women team. Mary is my age. Got all that? There will be a quiz later.
Sunday: Sunday, the first day of racing, turned out to be not such a great day. The weather was great, but almost right from the get-go I had stomach issues. I ended up not eating anything on course all day. Once you start down that road there comes a time when you just can’t/don’t want to eat...as a result I was out on course for a long time and moving very slowly. That was suffering... Finally finished, I had myself a good cry and started preparing for the next day.
Monday: As we were gathered waiting at the start, it started to rain every so gently. Stayed like that with small doses of harder rain throughout most of the day. I could have used it a couple of degrees warmer, but I was never cold enough to bother to stop and put my rain jacket on. My hands were mostly ok, too. I was eating more than the day before, but still probably not as much as I should have been eating.
As the rain picked up we were in the middle of a long climb up the Colorado Trail. I knew that this section had a lot of false summits and I passed a couple of folks so I didn’t really want to stop and put the jacket on before the top. And of course once I realized that I had passed the top and was into about a 5 mile downhill, well then I definitely didn’t want to stop. I wore a long sleeve jersey with arm warmers all day. Again, I wasn’t warm, but I also wasn’t cold. The long downhill was awesome fun, even in the rain with the trail turning to a small river in parts. Definitely not good for the trail or the bike. The gunk started to affect my shifting but I kept grinding it out. I followed the OTHER women’s duo team down the long descent. Despite the conditions, we were having a hoot! At one point they were nice enough to pull over and let me by. Ok, by the time I got to the bottom of that my hands were a little chilly, or as my brother might say “non-optimal” for operating brakes. I ended up braking a chain, too much forcing bad shifting, but putting in a replacement link proved to be quick and easy.
Just over the crest of Vomit Hill (welcome to Breck!) I found a New Zealander who was picking himself up from a crash. He looked pretty dazed and I did what I could, but I moved on down the hill. (Turns out that he finished the entire stage.)
Just as I was leaving the 3rd Aid Station, Rebecca and Mary pulled in. They started to help a friend of theirs (Stephanie) who I think was about to be pulled out of the race due to hypothermia when someone realized that she was a diabetic. (She is on a pump, and was still getting the insulin settings right for high altitude stage racing.) Rebecca gave her the rain pants that she had pre-dropped at Aid 3, got her going a little and rode the rest of the way with her. (“After about 5 minutes she started speaking in full sentences again.”) (You can hear Stephanie in this video at 3:40 saying “I had a GREAT time out there!”)
This is the sort of thing that happens a lot in these types of races. As it turns out R&M lost their leader jersey Monday, probably due to the assistance that they provided their friend. But keeping other folks in the race is just as important as keeping yourself in the race for most people. It’s part of what makes it such a great scene.
Note that this jersey is also red in front and that that my legs are usually more pasty looking that that!
Photo Courtesy of CyclingDirt.org
When I finally rolled into the finish, it was coming down pretty hard. (You can see me roll in in the above video at about 3:30, just behind Alex from “Kenya-Kenya-Kenya”.) I stood under the small tent and was putting my jacket on (finally!) for the cold downhill (road) ride back to the house. Just as I headed out, Eric, Mary’s husband jumped out of his truck, told me to not do it, threw my bike in the back and I climbed in up front, mud and all. He had finished an hour+ earlier (a theme that would be continued all week!) and was waiting to help them when they crossed the line. They were only about 5 or 10 minutes behind me, so we headed back to the house covered in mud, and starting to get seriously cold and achy.
There were rumors that Tuesday might be cancelled if the rain continued, but by the time of the nightly racers meeting, the weather forecast looked mostly clear for Tuesday.
Get ready for Day Three.
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