The Friday before the race we headed up to a rented condo in Dillon, Co an area we’ve stayed a number of times during the winter to ski in Breckenridge/Keystone the general summit county area. This would put us at 9,000 ish feet and within 30 minutes of the start/finishes. The condo was nice enough and soon Erin and Kyle would come up and join us for the weekend.

Saturday we decided to make the drive up to Mt. Evans, one of the few 14,000 ft. peaks in Colorado completely accessible by car. As it turns out we were not the only ones with this idea and what should have been a few hour trip got a little longer. I was actually really curious about this since I don’t think I’ve ever really been up at that elevation and kind of wanted to see how it was going to affect me. It was a bit of an eye opener and a little disorienting. Well at least we don’t go all the way up that high in the race, but we do get up to 12,500 for a little while…more on that later.

Anyhow, we start back towards the condo and I’m realizing we’re short on time for the two things I was hoping to do, ride a few miles of the start for tomorrow and get signed in for the race before the opening mandatory meeting. The rain was moving in anyhow and I didn’t necessarily “need” to ride. So it wasn’t really worth getting too upset about.

Regardless, I managed to get checked in and ride a couple miles worth of the start for the first stage, which as I thought was pretty much wide open paved road. Erin, Kyle, Katie, and Lizzie came up to Breckenridge to meet me for dinner which was pretty nice to keep me calmed down and not really worrying about things that didn’t matter.

We got back to our condo and I went to getting things ready for the start. Aid bags loaded, number plate, what I was going to wear, everything kind of laid out. I felt like a kid before christmas, I just kind of kept wandering what else I could do. Finally we went to bed and surprisingly I was able to sleep.

With our Condo being down in Dillon  we had to leave extra early to get my aid bags dropped off before 7:30, then have some time to kill before the start at 8:30. I fumbled around until it felt almost too late and got ready and made a short ride up to the Ice rink for a little warm up and managed to ride up there with Dahn Pahrs, a singlespeeder from Pittsburgh. I’d seen this name before atop a lot of SS results and he had done the Breck Epic once before. Dahn seemed like a guy I should try and keep my eye on.

We get lined up, the announcements go, and we roll out to AC/DC’s Thunderstruck…I’m not sure how you don’t get a little too excited with that kind of rollout but we quickly get hit with the 3 mile road climb. As a SS’er you tend to get shuffled around a lot during these “neutral rollouts” but we went uphill a good bit so I was able to not get completely spit out the back. Then at the top we duck into the first Singletrack for a downhill rollercoaster, wheel to wheel with all kinds of riders. What a blast though, a big long train of awesome riders ripping some singletrack. This is what I signed up  for!!

The day had its ups and downs, some punchy climbing, chunky rocky, loose descending, but I was largely feeling good so I kept pushing. I yo-yo’d with Dahn a good bit and generally just had a good time. Getting my colorado legs under me and having fun. As we got into what I knew was the last section with any uphill I saw another SS in front of me and he was struggling with some of the steeper pitches. Finally I closed the gap down and we hit an uphill switch back that I was able to nail while he had to get off. Figuring I was now in 2nd place I put my foot as firmly on the gas as I could and opened up a gap.

We hit the final downhill and it’s this flowy bike park like terrain (jumps, berms, etc.) this is not what I would consider my strength but I kept my head down and did what I could to keep the speed up. After a few close calls I finally saw that finish line and rolled across as the 2nd SS with 3rd only 17 seconds behind me. Erin, Kyle, Katie, and Lizzie were all there to watch which was so great.

I managed to surprise myself and pick up a stage podium on the first day, beating a couple of guys I wasn’t sure that I could ride with. Only one issue, my stomach was not sending the same happy signals that my head was. I also had some concern that I’d just gone a little too hard on day 1 of a 6 day race. (Looking back I don’t think I went too hard, just poorly handled nutrition).