Mission accomplished. Beer intake is at a weekly high and belt buckle has been secured.

Short work of this tonight.

We survived.

I slept really well, with the help of some benadryl and melatonin, and a beer.

Nerves over breakfast. Aid bags? Tire pressure?

We rolled to the start line at the local ice rink parking lot.

8:56, wave 27 (the really slow wave).

Team B was ready.

Today’s finishing stage, 30 miles and ~3500 miles of climbing, a pittance of what we had endured this week.

WE BLOWED TODAY UP.

Well, comparatively speaking, that is.

The first few miles was pretty easy, twisty single track out of the parking lot, only had to climb for 3 miles and Jena only had to wait for a minute or so…

Some sweet flow back down and then some more single track that dumped us into a another 3 mile gravel road climb,  Boreas – Tank to top that rolled into the first aid station at mile 10. (that’s 6 miles of climbing if you’re counting like I was).

@MethaneyEndurance was there with our aid bags. Jena and I made short work and we were off.

We dropped back into the woods and hit the famous Gold Dust flume trails, cruisey-fun single track, where Jena proceeded to put the hammer down. {FWIW – this was really fun and we only almost crashed balls three times}.

Rocketing out of gold dust, we were spit out onto a gravel road that turned into another damn 6.5 mile climb.

Jena cracked the whip and put me into the pain cave for the next hour. A gradual 4% over the next 6 miles. I looked like a rabid dog as we rolled into the aid station at mile 22. Drooling all over my top tube and wheezing like I had smoked a pack or two.

We had a quick bottle swap. The volunteers told us it was 99% downhill to the finish.

I didn’t share dude’s enthusiasm, given the leg-beating-climbs we endured this week.

The next 10 was downhill though.

And it was so much fun. A little bony, but we just let the big dogs eat.

 

From here in, it was probably the most fun single track we rode all week.

More sweet single track. Flying downhill like a scalded dog.

We rolled across the finish line, hand in hand and I yelled out with tears running down my dust-marred faced, “YEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHH!”

We finished with our fastest time of the week, just under 3:50.

Big smiles on our face.

We hugged, and cried. We screamed out loud in exclamation that we had done it.

The feeling was surreal, and as I type this, I have goosebumps (as I reach for my recover beer).

Comparatively speaking, today’s stage was a softball.  I don’t think I hiked my bike for more than a minute or two.

Which is a damn miracle.

{One day I’ll insert a professional photo here that the event photographer snapped, until then, this is a crappy photo of Jena and I, and said photographer.}

I need to cash out for now. We’ve had a big day, week. There’s a lot of emotions swirling and I’m still processing what we accomplished this week.

For now, I’d like to leave a simple statement with you, as well as some photos.

BreckEpic is legit.

However.

Epic is in the eye of the beholder.

This is my opinion only, but I think there’s plenty of stoke out there, it’s not necessary to gut yourself over six days for a damn belt buckle to say you did some epic shit.

Crit racing.

Epic.

Trail running.

Epic.

Family of 3, getting-up at 6am and doing the local hammer ride. Yeah, that’s epic, for sure.

I’ll stop for now. I do plan on posting a deeper dive into this experience and all the folks that were part of it, later.

For now, I’ll leave this with you.

…

……

….

We got that damn belt buckle.

#BreckEpic18 #DonateLife #BeTheGift #TeamTransplant#TeamSweetPigQueenofthePotRoasts #HattieBsRacing #LittleHarpethBrewing #MathenyEndurance #653wordcount

edit: great video of today’s stage