Breck epic day one

Only one day in and my legs are already aching.

Although I felt reasonably well-adjusted to the 3000m altitude here, I didn't know how it would affect me in a race so decided to try to take the first day easy. Of course, start line adrenaline puts paid to that pretty quickly and, within minutes, I seemed to be gasping for air. Thankfully it didn't last too long and I felt fairly good on the climbs, often riding technical climbs where others were walking. I suspect this was more of a gearing issue rather than me being super strong (I am running a double chain ring while most people are on singles- a poor choice of which will really mess up your day). I also felt that all the riding in Canada had upped my game a bit for descending so I was feeling confident on the Singletrack. Sadly, there wasn't a huge amount of Singletrack descending- lots of fire roads and rocky, rough tracks that I am always going to be cautious on. Plenty of people were puncturing or crashing on these sections. I'm hopeful there won't be so many of them over the week ahead. I had a bit of a lull in the second half. This seems to happen in these mid-length races. I'm not sure if I just don't have the attention span for them or if it's a fuelling issue. I don't seem to stomach food well at altitude and never drink much- especially as there were queues for water at the aid station. Going to try to address both of these tomorrow and maybe pick up a couple of places in the standings, I'm not far behind the girls in front.
were as well as the descents. Middle of the pack as usual it I was pretty pleased with my ride.

This is the first race I've done with a 'Clydesdale' category. They have categories for everything so prize giving takes a long time every evening. So does the race briefing and the haranguing about litter or inappropriate urination spots etc. Apparently the race briefing is mandatory but it is seriously tedious, probably much worse because it's holding be back from dinner!!!
The event has a really different feel so far to the Singletrack 6 so we will see how that changes over the week ahead. So far ST6 is winning in the trails and the race briefings as well as the logistics and social side. Some of this stuff isn't so important when you are local and have just driven over with all your gear, fiends, partners etc. But when you are a solo international racer it really makes a big difference and this race hasn't felt nearly as sociable as other stage races I've done. I'm for mass camping sand communal meals every time!

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