Epic Camp Day 6: Clearwater to Blue River

Today was a self-imposed huge day.  The lake that we were staying at was so beautiful that I had to do another big swim.  6k.  12k (7.2 miles) in 14 hours.  If you know nothing about swimming, that's huge.  My elbows and shoulders were a little sore after that.  We're allowed to do two 6k swims for mega points, so I'm glad to get those out of the way.  It was so convenient to have the lake steps from my door, so getting up early and getting out there was pretty easy.

Breakfast was pretty mellow, and we were out on the road on our bikes reasonably quickly.  The ride today was 68 miles, and I'll be honest, I was pretty smashed for this.  Some deep hurt is settling into my legs for sure as these miles add up.  And even worse, my under-carriage (ass) is taking a beating.  These roads are getting less and less smooth, and it's taking its toll.  I'm starting to look forward to the aid stations more for the chamois cream than for the water, cookies, gummy things, and sun screen combined.

A few people were doing ironman bike simulations, so our group today was pretty small.  It consisted of me, Molina, Douglas, and Glen.  Thank god for Glen.  The dude is a raging locomotive, and I'm quite thankful for his ten mile pulls.  I've been doing ten minute pulls at about 220-240 watts.  Molina is the most sensible, and Douglas is a crazy person (in a good way.)  We motored along at a pretty decent clip today, so we got ride done in about three and a half hours.  I think that's about all my butt could handle.

Once we got to Blue River, we were scheduled to do a 10k run off the bike, but since I want to make sure I'm in a good position for the yellow, I opted to do a two hour run.  It was crazy hot out, so the run was pretty tough.  Since I was going for time, I ran pretty slowly.  I did manage to get 15 miles in, but my legs were pretty shot after that.  Luckily Michelle had some openings for massages, so I went in for that ASAP.  I told her to go as hard as possible, and let me tell you, it was quite painful.

Other than that, the rest of the afternoon was pretty chill.  I moved into third for overall points, but Adam B is still six points ahead.  There are still two solid running sets that I can do to close the gap: 38min 10k (6:07/mi pace,) and 7x1k at 3:50.  With any bit of freshness, I should be able to pull those off pretty easily.  The 38min 10k might be challenging, so I'll need to do that one early.

There's also a KOM on the way to Jasper.  The full ride is 125 miles, but the KOM tops out at mile 82.5.  The KOM race starts after the first aid station around mile 31, so it'll be 50 miles of hard riding.  My strategy is going to be simple: Hang on to Zach's wheel at all costs.  Realistically I'm not sure if I can beat him since he's not going for camp completion which means his legs are infinitely fresher than mine, but I need to be second since points go towards the yellow at the end.

No pictures today since my gopro was messed up.  I have some on my phone, but those won't upload for some reason.

Day 7