Jen Hanks is currently riding in 3rd place at the inaugural Breck-Epic in Breckenridge, Colorado. Jen is an experienced endurance and cross country mountain bike racer who has completed both the Transalp and Transrockies stage races. Join us as she shares her experiences each day of the Breck-Epic.
Jen:
Yesterday I was caught on video saying that the stage was more fun than any stage I had done at both the TransRockies and TransAlp. Today I would feel comfortable repeating that statement. If you’re looking for a mountain bike stage race with LOTS of tough climbing and LOADS of singletrack, Breck Epic is for you. A compounding factor that adds to the challenge of the race is the incredibly high altitude. Racers who live at altitude definitely have an advantage.
Today we started at the Breckenridge hockey ring and climbed up the same road used in the Firecracker 50 Marathon National Championships. I felt good from the start and tried to keep my pace up and catch a draft off some of the other racers. The equipment change that I eluded to in yesterday’s post was to use my lighter hardtail bike today. Yesterday I felt that I struggled on the climbs and rode the downhills really smooth so I was hoping that I could improve my climbing today. It seemed to be working and I kept the leaders in my category in sight up the long first climb. We hit a singletrack downhill and the hardtail seemed just as fast. I lost contact with the leader of my category on the next dirt climb, however I was still feeling good. It was here that I latched on to one of the co-ed duo teams. It was cool to see them work together and it brought back fond memories of doing TransAlp and TransRockies with my husband.
At mile 6 I blew through the neutral water zone. It felt like we had just started the race. We then climbed forever again to a super rocky doubletrack downhill, through a creek, and up again to the first official feedzone. I arrived to the feed zone looking for my support, but he was nowhere in sight. This had me a bit flustered, but really wasn’t too big of a deal because the neutral support was phenomenal and I had put extra food/drink in my drop bag ‘just in case’. We then rode down a dirt road with lots of potholes. It was admittedly pretty rough on the hardtail. I was then rewarded with some super fun and fast singletrack. When I finally arrived to the final feed I looked for my support. Man, I missed him again! I dumped off my camelback in my drop bag and picked up two water bottles to get me up the last super steep climb and down another rough and rocky downhill to the finish. I finished exactly where I did yesterday, so riding the ‘climbing’ bike did not really help me at all. My time today was just over 3 hours. This sounds like a relatively short stage, but I’m finding that the altitude makes recovery more difficult. Right now I am too tired to think about what I will do for tomorrow. I’m having a love/hate relationship with food. Trying to get lots of calories in, but nothing sounds good. This is pretty typical for me midway through a stage race. As for tomorrow, I believe it is the longest, toughest, and most brutal of all days. I can’t wait, but first I need some rest!
