BC Bike Race: Day 4

Distance: 38.4 Miles
Elevation: 5367 feet
Time: 7.5 hours
Difficulty: Hard. Hardest day for me, anyway.
Douchebag of the Day: The guy who was re-wearing a jersey and/or shorts and clearly hadn’t showered!

From the start of the day, I could tell it would be a long one. I just never really got into a rhythm, my stomach had been upset all morning and I just wasn’t into it. I think I was having the day 4 blues. That and the fact that it was our second longest day, and they had moved in the cutoff time at Aid Station 2 also made me a little fearful. I had made it so far that I didn’t want to get cut off at the Aid Station and not be allowed to finish. Now, as he day went on, and I had some “dark miles” there was a part of me that had wished I had gotten cut off so I did have to complete the whole day, but of course I would have been seriously disappointed if that had happened.

Today was a tough day, full of climbing. It wasn’t necessarily very technical, but the climbing just kept coming at you. And at you. And at you. And on legs that were already tired from the last 3 days, it was a little relentless. And on some of the climbs, I just didn’t have any pick up to speak of! My favorite Swiss couple that I had played leap frog with most of the week went flying by me at one point, and I didn’t have any energy to tag along. As I got to the aid station, I realized that I had actually bonked, which was a huge part of the reason that I felt like I did. But the good news was that I made it to the 2nd Aid Station with 20 minutes to spare to the cutoff…I was safe to keep riding.

This, however, was a blessing and a curse. The next 20KMs consisted of 15K of climbing and 5K of downhill. Fortunately, another rider I had been leap frogging all week was at the aid station as I was taking off, so we did the next 7-10K of climbing together. After that, the FP (family practitioner) took off as the trail got pretty technical and he was just faster at that section than I was.

So speaking of FP, the fact that this is such an international crowd has led to a funny naming convention around the pack. This week I have been known as “Marin”, “San Francisco”, “California”, “Mill Valley” and “Roadie”. Only Marie, a sweet girl from Alberta who I’ve spent a lot of time with this week, calls me Jessica. My personal favorite is “Roadie”, though, as it keeps me close to my roots :-)

After I split from FP, I road along on a pretty technical part of trail, with riders pass by that I had pass earlier in the day on the climbs. But after I had already been riding for about 90 minutes since the aid station, I realized that I hadn’t seen anyone for a while, and didn’t end up seeing anyone for over an hour - not another rider, support crew, nada. These would be the dark miles. I was still on course as the ribbons were all around me, but not seeing anyone for that long made it really, really lonely. Plus, who would think that 12.5 miles could take you 3 hours to complete! So without a GPS or Odometer on my bike, I had no clue how much longer until the end of my day. Plus, at this point, it was nearing 7:00 at night. I was tired, frustrated, cold, hungry, and just wanted to be back at camp.

Well, after what felt like FOREVER, I finally came upon a road, and some volunteers, who informed me I only had 3K to go. It ended up being the longest 3K ever, but still only 3K to go. When I crossed the finish line, I was greeted by Jeff, as I have been EVERY day, and the FP, who gave me a big high-five. But the emotion of the day had gotten the better of me, and I looked back at Jeff, he gave me a big hug and I just started to cry. Hard. They Marie came over, crying, too, to give me a big hug too and to let me know just how long of a day she had had, too. That was very sweet, and honestly, made me feel better!

So after all that, we only had 15 minutes until dinner, so I hobbled over to the RV, wiped off some of the dirt, put on some clean clothes and ate everything in sight! I had more Caesar salad in one night than I’ve had in the last five years. I don’t know what it has been this week, but I can’t get enough salad vegetables! And Canadian “party mix” is my new favorite guilty pleasure. I have to see if I can get some imported to US J