The last day...
Of course with any long journey there are mixed emotions going into the final day. There is excitement and relief, but also sadness that the event will be over, we will be leaving our new friends and will have to go back to our regular lives and not be just running and eating all day everyday!
Of course with any long journey there are mixed emotions going into the final day. There is excitement and relief, but also sadness that the event will be over, we will be leaving our new friends and will have to go back to our regular lives and not be just running and eating all day everyday!
Stage 6 would have us leaving Vail Mountain, starting straight uphill for a short bit, then running on roads, yes roads for about 3 miles, crossing over route 70 and switchbacking up some mountain. Then we would come back down, cross the highway again, and head back up the other side to the top of Beaver Creek before the final descent into the beautiful Beaver Creek Resort and our soft hotel bed that awaited!!
After the uphill start we got into a pretty good groove on the roads. We didn't go crazy early because this stage had the most elevation gain of all six stage with 5100 ft!
As you can see from the elevation graph, there was a lot of work to be done, so this 3 miles of road didn't have to be rushed. Going into this stage I don't remember the legs being horribly tired or anything, I think they were past that point and were just running on there own. I do belive that Jackie and I got stronger as the week went on and stage 6 was no execption as we both felt pretty damn good throughout the stage. We climbed well on the first climb and the second...the last climb was a bitch and Jackie finally showed that she was human and wasn't pulling me up the hills anymore. Once we popped out of the trees and onto the access road for that last final descent, it was a great relief that we knew we had accomplished our goal and in the final stage I felt like we were actually racing as we had some back and forth action with a few treams, including two in our division that we were able to beat out and finish in 8th for the day in 4:28:00, finishing one spot behind our good friends Keri and AJ Wheeler.
Once finshed we rounded up our suitcases etc and waited for Thor and Jay to come down the mountain, and we didn't have to wait long as they saved their best day for last and rocked the stage in a solid 5:02:23. After they celebrated a bit with their wives we headed into the Beaver Creek Chophouse and had a celebratory beer. Thor wanted a photo of this and as he whipped out his camera someone was walking by, so he asked her to take a photo, however it wasn't just somebody it was Tracy Garneau! She was happy to help and we got a great photo of us enjoying a local Colorado brew.
After trading stories everyone went their separate ways to check in to our hotels and get ready for the after parties...that story in the next post!
Final Results!
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| Start of Stage 6 |
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| Running through Vail |
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| Across the highway |
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| Running through the trees |
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| They don't mess around with trail marking here...that marker is 5 ft long! |
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| Heading up the last climb |
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