Can't sleep. No matter how much I try to quiet my mind, I keep turning over the day. F it, might as well get my blogging done.
Day started with a majestic swim in Seton Lake just 7k out of Lillooet. Stunned. Fellow camper David Rowe blogged that it reminded him of Doubtful Sound, which I haven't been to, but if that's like Milford Sound, which I have been, I'd agree. Something like Queenstown, too, although the lake is so much smaller, it pulls the mountains in right on top of you and makes them seem far bigger. Serene. Pristine. As I am a middling swimmer at best, it was mostly by myself, with fellow camper Balland for company. Not sure best to express what I felt 2.5k down that lake, other than to say I can't stop playing it back in my head.
Did 5k, which was my longest swim ever. Did not do the full tack on as A) I am not a GC contender and B) my shoulder was startin to hurt a bit. Ran back to town + a little extra to get my camp minimum run in (10k).
Today was a shortish ride (relatively) of 105k, front-loaded with a lot of climbing, but mostly under 10%, so that was manageable. Made the questionable decision to try to hang on to Kid Stanford, Zach P, and Petro - not the wisest thing I've ever done. But I hung on to the rest stop. Those guys can motor. Molina hit the front multiple times, too. He was talkin two days ago about how sweet it would be to not hit the front the entire camp, but I think he got fired up when the big dogs got to crankin and wanted a piece of his own.
My day got interesting when with something like 20k to go I snapped off my rear derailleur. And when I snapped, I mean, ripped it apart. Superlative tech support Mark Rendall MacGyvered me an impromtpu fixie and off I went to finish. I had checked out the course profile on MapMyRide earlier and thought we had a lot of climbing again to finish. Big mistake! I chose a gear for climbing but there was nothing steep and quite a lot of flattish stuff. I looked like a right igit (for you Americans) / git (for you Brits) flogging away on my TT 39 x 27 fixie at 130+ rpm. Beat that dead horse right into the ground for a max speed of 12mph. But I made it home finally. Day 3, job done.
The guys are gonna get something sorted out. The logistics of camp are hectic as it is. I feel terrible for throwing this monkey wrench in to boot. But extremely grateful. I may be ridin fixie for a few days. But I learned a lesson: Know the Course! Cuz you never know when life is going to make you choose One and Only One Gear.
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