BreckEpic stage 2: fun trails, but Lordy it hurts

I was hacking all yesterday evening and into the night, despite chain-sucking on cough drops and a gulp of NyQuil before bed.  Poor Drew moved out to the couch around 11 pm.  My chest finally quieted down after a second dose of NyQuil around midnight. 

But by morning, I was feeling better. Jim, on the other hand, was not.  His 5 day old injuries got the better of him yesterday and he decided to pull the plug on BreckEopic 2016.  :-(

I was pleased that I was feeling mostly better, because today would be longer and harder than yesterday.  The route was supposed to be 39 miles and 6000 feet of climbing. 

Day 2 start. We were down 1. Photo by the lovely Lolly Sneed

Today's stage turned out 42.5 miles and 5800 feet of climbing on some fantastic singletrack.  The trails were really superb!  Nothing too technical, tons of flowing swooping trail through high alpine forest.  We were really out there today!  I came upon a guy who had just broken his collar bone 4 miles from help.  I told the ambulance at the next opportunity. I hope he is OK.

The fantastic-ness of the trails did not, however, make up for the fact that I was on my bike for 5 hours and 44 minutes.  Ouch!!  And it only gets harder from here.

In the end, I finished 4th on the stage and now I'm in 4th over all by a measly but huge 2 and a half minutes. That seems like a gap I could close if I keep feeling OK and don't have mechanicals, but at the same time, the ladies ahead of me are all able to beat me by 5 or 6 minutes each day. 


Andy and Brad rode together today and finished ahead of Drew and me.