Photo cred: Devon Balet, one of the best sports photogs out there. Thanks for the pics!
Today was like deja vu, except I was missing my partner from last year! I raced the 2010 Breck Epic with Jeff Kerkove as a coed duo. It was my first stage race. Since, I have done 2 other stage races (Transylvania Epic and Brasil Ride) but I still realllly love the Breck Epic. High alpine singletrack is my true love. Like love, sometimes we get along perfectly and it gives me butterflies, sometimes every step of the way feels hard, sometimes it hurts me, sometimes we fight, and sometimes it feels surreal… but I always come back.
After getting up at 4 AM and 5 hours of sleep yesterday and supporting at Leadville the whole day (and then booking it to Breck to make registration, pre-race meeting, make dinner, and getting drop bags ready) and no spinning the legs, I wasn’t sure how stage 1 was going to go.
Drop bags had to be there 1 hr and 10 min before the start, so I took advantage of that time and did a bigger warm up than I normally would. I was pleasantly surprised that my legs felt snappy, so I actually went easier on the warm up. It was great to see a lot of returning faces from last year as well as a LOT of racers new to the event – GROWTH!!
I’m trying to start faster in races, so I told myself I’d hang on to the open men as long as I could up Boreas Pass Road. I managed to hang on and entered the first singletrack descent (Aspen Alley, I know it well) with them. I even rode this section I normally avoid and have never had the guts to go down (it’s the super super steep kitty litter downhill by a mine). I normally opt for the loose rutted singletrack that bypasses it. I took the lead from the start and had no clue how close 2nd and 3rd place were behind me. There are some talented women in my field and I knew they’d be trying to close the gap. The climbs today (as you can see in the course profile) were relentless and they kept coming.
