Yeah, I skipped a day. I’ve hardly got the capacity to type this post, though.

Today’s stage- Pennsylvania Gulch- included a little bit of the Marathon Nationals course that I rode two years ago. That meant we had the pleasure of climbing French Gulch… and by climbing, I mean pushing my bike for an extended period of time.

With the course length of 38 miles, I opted to carry water in a camelback and a bottle full of kinda strong Gu Roctane. The camelback would let me basically forgo using drop bags since I could carry a gel flask, powerbar, some shot blocks, and the “mandatory for high-elevation backcountry riding” lightweight windbreaker. It worked out well, though now that I’ve got a feel for pacing, I may use bottles for stages after tomorrow (long stretch of Colorado Trail, big gap between aid stations).

The course today was relentless.

 

As I mentioned before, I felt great, but I realized 1.5-2 hours in that I needed to back off a bit in order to not destroy myself on the first day out. I knew that there was a woman ahead of me, but it’s a long, long race, and I’m really new to the energy budget-ing required for the week. So, I started walking a little more. It’s sometimes a little hard to convince yourself to hop off the bike when you know that a relatively brief redline effort would get you up the hill in front of you. I felt slow, but hopefully it’ll keep me going strong for the remaining 5 days.

Most of the day was a blur of climbing, pushing, and descending hairy, rowdy, rock-covered jeep roads. Repeatedly. I ended up finishing in 4 hours, 42 minutes… nearly half an hour back from 1st place. Not exactly a great place to be in a stage race. We’ve still got 5 days of racing, though, so hopefully the “half an hour back” trend won’t continue. Whether it does or not, this is shaping up to be one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever taken on.