Hi everyone,
Sorry for the break in communications the last few days but we haven't been able to get cell or wireless signals. So I'll cover the last 3 days with the remaining battery in my laptop.
So Day 3 - the first 20+ miler of the event. 24 miles to be exact! We started in Leadville which is where we were bused after Day 2. This day had 2900 ft of climbing and 3800 ft of decending! The up after Day 2 nightmare, seemed doable at first but got tougher and tougher. The grade had to be 20% or more in most spots and got worse the higher we got. Needless to say I was having a tough time. My legs were sooo tired that they just couldn't bend which made it tricky. However we kept going and made it to the top and some spectacular views. Now we just had to make it all the way down to Nova Guides, our rest stop for the night. There were a couple of water crossings one that was at mid thigh height!! Felt really good!! The finish seemed like it would never get here but we finally made in just under 6 hours which was pretty good we thought. It moved us into 10th place which was a surprise.
The next day we woke to freezing temps and shivered our way to the start. This route was up and over to Red Cliff. This was a day of more horrendous climbing and even more downhill. The only good news was it was only 14 miles... the day went well for us and we make it back to Red CLiff in 3:36 and change. We promptly headed to the nearest watering hole and celebrated with some other runners from Victoria and Auburn. I love recovery food!!!
After another cold night at Red Cliff we headed to Vail today. This was another really long one - 23 miles. By now we're old hat at this and in a routine....get up, eat, shiver at the start and then head out for more punishment and abuse on the trails of Colorado :- ) Just kidding about the abuse part.
For this route we had 8 miles of fire road that averaged about 6% and then after the first check point, we headed up another 6 miles on 3 different trails until we were "at the top of the world". It was just amazing the scenery and definitely worth the work to get there. So now after 4400 ft of climbing we got to decend (again!!) for 4800 ft over 10 miles...ouch!!! Need less to say again we made it but this time it took us 6:22 and change to get to the bottom!! Still we're happy to be here and have just one more day to go to the finish. It will feel so good to finally be done but we were remarking at dinner that the days have flown and we can't believe we're already at our last evening. Tomorrow we head from Vail to Beaver Creek, another 21 miles and we'll be done!!
I'll update again tomorrow after we finish.
Thans for listening.
C'ya
Sorry for the break in communications the last few days but we haven't been able to get cell or wireless signals. So I'll cover the last 3 days with the remaining battery in my laptop.
So Day 3 - the first 20+ miler of the event. 24 miles to be exact! We started in Leadville which is where we were bused after Day 2. This day had 2900 ft of climbing and 3800 ft of decending! The up after Day 2 nightmare, seemed doable at first but got tougher and tougher. The grade had to be 20% or more in most spots and got worse the higher we got. Needless to say I was having a tough time. My legs were sooo tired that they just couldn't bend which made it tricky. However we kept going and made it to the top and some spectacular views. Now we just had to make it all the way down to Nova Guides, our rest stop for the night. There were a couple of water crossings one that was at mid thigh height!! Felt really good!! The finish seemed like it would never get here but we finally made in just under 6 hours which was pretty good we thought. It moved us into 10th place which was a surprise.
The next day we woke to freezing temps and shivered our way to the start. This route was up and over to Red Cliff. This was a day of more horrendous climbing and even more downhill. The only good news was it was only 14 miles... the day went well for us and we make it back to Red CLiff in 3:36 and change. We promptly headed to the nearest watering hole and celebrated with some other runners from Victoria and Auburn. I love recovery food!!!
After another cold night at Red Cliff we headed to Vail today. This was another really long one - 23 miles. By now we're old hat at this and in a routine....get up, eat, shiver at the start and then head out for more punishment and abuse on the trails of Colorado :- ) Just kidding about the abuse part.
For this route we had 8 miles of fire road that averaged about 6% and then after the first check point, we headed up another 6 miles on 3 different trails until we were "at the top of the world". It was just amazing the scenery and definitely worth the work to get there. So now after 4400 ft of climbing we got to decend (again!!) for 4800 ft over 10 miles...ouch!!! Need less to say again we made it but this time it took us 6:22 and change to get to the bottom!! Still we're happy to be here and have just one more day to go to the finish. It will feel so good to finally be done but we were remarking at dinner that the days have flown and we can't believe we're already at our last evening. Tomorrow we head from Vail to Beaver Creek, another 21 miles and we'll be done!!
I'll update again tomorrow after we finish.
Thans for listening.
C'ya
1 comment:
We can't wait to get the final report! Hope all went well.
George & Jane
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