Epic Camp D5 - Clearwater

The WiFi gets saturated and virtually unusable in the afternoon / evening when everyone is trying to catch up with family by email or Skype, upload pictures, and blog.  But it's great at 4am when noone else is up.

Slept poorly as I have a pinched nerve in my neck that makes it hard to get any deep sleep in, despite the fatigue.

Day started with a 10k run into the hills above Clinton.  It was basically a 5k hill climb up and back, so it was real breathy on the way up and conversational on the way down.  The upper part of the "road" / trail was rocky and rutted so picky our way down meant lots of braking.  My quads were reminding me of yesterday's 2h run.

The ride to Clearwater was our longest day on the bike yet, at 190k / 118m.  Zach, Barry, Phil, Molina, Doug, and I all took long pulls.  Some were bitching about the surges.  For my part, I was trying to keep it sensible, especially on the rollers, where power-to-weight aint in my favor.  Doug was killing us however.  Fegan had us in stitches with a long and well justified rant after Doug pulled us into the second water stop.  Doug had just the hint of a very satisfied smile the whole time like he really did mean to rip our legs off.  Did I mention that Doug looks like a cross between Chris Froome and Bill Nighy and presents to the wind like a Kamm aerofoil?  

The ride profile finished with a long 10k ish descent of 3000+ feet and then a flat 30k finish.  The descent looked tasty on paper and did not disappoint.  Very wide sweeping turns, nothing technical, so we all bombed it.  Some were more madmen than others.  I am looking at you Rob Hill, who was expressed that it might have been more fun had it been more technical.  On the flat Molina took us home at a gentleman's pace.  Kid Stanford also put in a sensible pull, until Doug took over and caned us again.  Fortunately, there were only 2 miles left at that point.

Arrived shelled from the day's effort.  My gut had been pretty hosed a couple days before, and on D4 I stuck to drink my fluids and eat my calories.  That helped a lot.  But today, with such a heavy workload on tap, I reverted to standard protocol of putting a light dose of energy drink in my bottles, hoping to keep topped up on calories.  Mistake!  I'll stick with water from here on out, I think.

Immediately jumped into the lake right outside our door to get my 3k swim in, before lethargy and fatigue had a chance to sap the will.  Job done for day.

Dinner was good: salmon, wild rice, mushrooms, fresh rosemary (I think) bread and butter.  But best was the Dairy Queen run afterwards, where I had a Blizzard (Reeses).  Thanks for Mark for running a bunch of us over to DQ in the van.