Had a great start to stage 2 (first stage of the day) was absolutely drilling it into the rock line- can’t believe I didn’t flat, super fast into the loamy steep switchbacks. Swooped through a few smoothly and was feeling real good about things until my front wheel washed on… a root maybe, don’t know but all the sudden my face was grinding to the loam- it was a really hard hit. Broke the visor off my helmet, had dirt up under my goggles, bar was askew. I was pretty shook up. Had to straighten out the bar before getting going again.the rest of that stage was an absolute mess. My hands and arms were so tense I totally blew out my forarms into complete locked up cramps by the end. Could barely peel my eyes off my front wheel- I mean- felt like newb city- super frustrating. In Hindsight, prob would have been better to remind myself of how long the day was and attack in a more measured manner than - I was so jazzed from my result yesterday I totally went overboard. Could have also dialed it in when I noted how f-Ing hard I took the rock line - I knew that wasn’t in control.
I headed to stage 3, which was long and super physical for the bottom half- but the top was a fun bike park like section and I thought I could get so flow back there and hope it carried through.
Top was great, not fast but was fun and my arms were ok. Into the physical stuff though thing fell apart pretty quickly. My front brake index finger stopped responding at all at one point and I back break slid into the tape and got tangled. Hit the deck a few times. Luckily the dirt was nice soft loam so no significant injuries. My mind got pretty dark and I almost quit at the end of that stage.
Some of the other women convinced me to give stage 4 a try before calling it a day- it was a shorter and the least physical stage of the day. It was a long pedal up though and I didn’t have much time to recover before it was launch time.
I didn’t ride at race pace but I did ride this stage clean and that really helped my confidence, but arms were still screaming at me.
Stage 5 - the longest w a lot of everything mixed in. A miserable climb & hike a bike to the top of the stage but not super long- My arms are wrecked and my times suck and I know this so I focused on just getting down safely. The views from the top were incredible- see photos below- and it was cool to ride the ridge line again- it’s a pretty epic stage start.
I had to slow pedal all the traversing sections so I could stretch out my forarms, so the women behind me caught me as I went along- which is always a tough pill to swallow- but i did make it to the bottom in one piece- and I’m really glad I didn’t quit halfway through the race.
Had a delicious post race beer w the my fellow racers. my family was there at the finish as well- so it was a nice end to a brutal day.
Now that im back at the hotel and showered all the aches and pains are making themselves known- I feel like a was in a fist fight- lol.
We got to take a few gondolas today so total climbing distance was in the neighborhood of 3k feet. So that wasn’t as insane as tweed valley- although the transfer to 4 was 1,300 of it- which started to hurt right around the 1k mark. Good training though- I’ll chalk it up to a good day of training— just going to keep at it and try to piece more and more of the things that work together. Next up is Burke and sugarloaf back in the old US of A.
I’m spending the next 2 weeks travelling around northern Italy w the fam, then I’ll Be home for a week and off again to the nica sleep away camp at KT to coach and ride w some not-too-little rascals. Hoping to sneak in some riding at burke while I’m up there- we’ll see if that’s manageable or not.
Thanks for following along. I really appreciate your words of encouragement. I’ll hit this thread back up when the EWS at Burke rolls around! TTFN
I headed to stage 3, which was long and super physical for the bottom half- but the top was a fun bike park like section and I thought I could get so flow back there and hope it carried through.
Top was great, not fast but was fun and my arms were ok. Into the physical stuff though thing fell apart pretty quickly. My front brake index finger stopped responding at all at one point and I back break slid into the tape and got tangled. Hit the deck a few times. Luckily the dirt was nice soft loam so no significant injuries. My mind got pretty dark and I almost quit at the end of that stage.
Some of the other women convinced me to give stage 4 a try before calling it a day- it was a shorter and the least physical stage of the day. It was a long pedal up though and I didn’t have much time to recover before it was launch time.
I didn’t ride at race pace but I did ride this stage clean and that really helped my confidence, but arms were still screaming at me.
Stage 5 - the longest w a lot of everything mixed in. A miserable climb & hike a bike to the top of the stage but not super long- My arms are wrecked and my times suck and I know this so I focused on just getting down safely. The views from the top were incredible- see photos below- and it was cool to ride the ridge line again- it’s a pretty epic stage start.
I had to slow pedal all the traversing sections so I could stretch out my forarms, so the women behind me caught me as I went along- which is always a tough pill to swallow- but i did make it to the bottom in one piece- and I’m really glad I didn’t quit halfway through the race.
Had a delicious post race beer w the my fellow racers. my family was there at the finish as well- so it was a nice end to a brutal day.
Now that im back at the hotel and showered all the aches and pains are making themselves known- I feel like a was in a fist fight- lol.
We got to take a few gondolas today so total climbing distance was in the neighborhood of 3k feet. So that wasn’t as insane as tweed valley- although the transfer to 4 was 1,300 of it- which started to hurt right around the 1k mark. Good training though- I’ll chalk it up to a good day of training— just going to keep at it and try to piece more and more of the things that work together. Next up is Burke and sugarloaf back in the old US of A.
I’m spending the next 2 weeks travelling around northern Italy w the fam, then I’ll Be home for a week and off again to the nica sleep away camp at KT to coach and ride w some not-too-little rascals. Hoping to sneak in some riding at burke while I’m up there- we’ll see if that’s manageable or not.
Thanks for following along. I really appreciate your words of encouragement. I’ll hit this thread back up when the EWS at Burke rolls around! TTFN
