Breck Epic.

People kept asking me if I raced in the Breck Epic this year. The answer is no, thanks. I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic about breaking my neck this year.

If you want to read about it from a rider's perspective, you can check out the Little Elf Man, his enormous friend, the Birdman of Charleston, or Montana's blog. Or if you're into the official journalism-type thing, head on over to Dirt Rag - also conveniently written by Montana.

But like I said, I wasn't racing. I was in for a week of high-altitude CamelBak refilling, taking pictures of people with Clif Bar crumbs in their beards, and watching my boyfriend flirt with other men in the hot tub.

One of the lady racers heard that I was staying in a condo with twelve dudes. Her eyes got wide. "Wow," she said. "You must be really patient."

Overall it was a pretty cool week. While everyone was out riding, I wheezed through a run. Then I rode my bike to the aid stations where I could heckle my friends and throw things at them. After each stage was over, they'd get back and start eating absurd amounts of ridiculous foods.

Bacon and pickles - post-race fuel of champions?

A bike-fixing party started after that and everyone complained for the next 6 hours about broken seat posts and backwards chains and water bottles that had been filled with powdered donuts. Then we'd go to the daily podium announcement, eat more food, and bedtime was promptly at 9:30 each night.

From what I gathered, stages 1 through 5 were really hard. But the podiums were nowhere in sight for those sea-level oxygen-breathers (besides Peter and Dicky, who got last-place out of two teams every day), so they spent the last day riding around the trails and drinking beer. There wasn't nearly as much bitching after that one.

To cap off the week, there was more food and beer at the awards ceremony.

Unfortunately, we had to peace out right away the next morning for another 28-hour drive. I needed to make it back to Wooster in time for the first week of cross country season (woop woop!).

It was a wonderful road trip and a nice week in Breck, but I'm glad to be back on a training schedule and eating free food daily at the dining hall with people who don't make disgusted faces when I talk about running. Hopefully next year I'll be in good enough bike-riding shape to do the 3-day mini Epic. Till then I'll stick to my running shoes.