Finally we are over halfway done. Today's stage was a ton of fun with a lot of climbing and descending -- almost 2,000 meters of vertical! Overall, there were five climbs in today's course with almost 50 km of trail. We knew it would be a tough day from the beginning, and so we made sure to eat and drink lots and we paced ourselves well.
We started out strong on a long gravel climb and settled into some fast single track. Midway through the race there was some hiking as well which hurt, like always, but we trudged on.
In the end it was a pretty uneventful stage. I felt strong and made sure to save some energy for stages four and five.
We had no big mishaps and we took the win once again. We beat second place, Georgia Gould and Dusty LaBarr, by over 40 minutes, leaving us a good margin for error in the coming stages.
We have two days left and we plan to have some fun. I'm hoping to finish at least one stage with a time that would put me in top three in the open women's category. Then hopefully I'll come back next year ready to crush it on my own!
Stage Overview Video:
Stay tuned for tomorrow's report and possibly some GoPro footage :)