Brek Epic Day Six, We made it!

WOW!!
We made it – six days of serious mountain bike racing. Dang, my legs are tired. And my butt is a little sore too, but whew! We’re done!

Today’s stage was a really great last day. It was “only” about 33 miles. Funny how over the course of a week 33 miles doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

It’s started with, get this, climbing. But it was actually somewhat fun climbing. Singletrack, in the trees and kind of rolling. Fun! And Mary, she had her race legs on today! She was putting the hurt on me on the first big climbing section, but I didn’t want to tell her that at the time. Then we hit the first section of downhill singletrack, can you say even more fun! Woo! Hoo! We were flying and having a ball. Nothing like getting mud in your teeth because you’re smiling.

But, the fun came to an end with another stretch of climbing up a dirt road. Have to say, compared to the grade of some of the climbing the last couple days, not bad! Like, it actually felt, dare I say, easy? No, I didn’t just say that. But climbing always means one thing, going down! And down we did on this incredible singletrack! Kind of narrow, a little rocky, but just enough to keep you paying attention, not enough to be scary. Then it turned into this flume – wow! Flume trails are just a hoot. No other way to describe it. Perfect grade and nice rounded, bermed corners. Daaaaaanng!! We were grinning ear to ear! And it kept going…surely, this flume is going to stop, but it lasted for, I swear 15 – 20 minutes. Super fun. Super fun!!

But again, had to end. Up, up, up Boreas Pass road. Climb. Climb. Climb. We hit the top, stopped at the aid station to top off a water bottle, then it was down, down, down for the finish. I was surprised how long we descended on the road. Big ring spinning down the road. Then we were being waved to slow down for a hard left into some singletrack. Sweet! And about 10 seconds down this trail, my bike started feeling a little squishy in the rear, which is odd because I have a hardtail…a flat?! What?! Are you kidding me? We laughed and fixed it, fairly quickly, I might add. And off we went. Still very fun singletrack, kind of rocky, but with bermed corners, fun to rail them! And only another 10 minutes later, I nailed (nailed!) a rock. DOH! Yep, another flat. Let me just say, after the previous five days and however many hours of racing – over all the rocks and other crap we’ve ridden over and I get two flats in the last 20 minutes?! Are you kidding me? We were having a good laugh about that.

Soon enough we hear the music and roll across the finish line. We did it!! There were some tough moments, but man, does it feel GREAT to be done. I think it was about 25 hours of riding over the last six days. No problem. I don’t think I’ve ridden 25 hours collectively in the past month. I have some great tan lines – should look nice when I take the kids to the pool next week.

Mary might have quite a different take on the events, here version is here: www.mountainflyer.com

I think I might have to try and talk Eric into doing this next year…

Thanks for reading. Hope I haven’t bored you to tears.
Until the next race,
Heather