Nice dinner last night and a good sleep in the cabin helped - plus a shaded, lower percent grade climb to ease us into the biggest climbing day yet at 2,496m.
After the first climb section, we dropped down a steep eroded cut that had a lot of traffic to a beach of a pristine lake with a volcano in the background. Beauty. From there it was a pretty serious hike, motivated by our competition teams in sight. We passed both and kept moving as fast as we could. Finally got to a long fast gravel descent, with the first aid station about 12k of mountains past where it was suggested to be - so felt a bit dry and hungry by then. We got going quick, but both other mixed teams caught us.
Climbed hard on a La Ruta last day special type climb. Some guy's Garmin registered over 100F apparently, I just sweat like a madman. Trish was a couple meters behind the whole way, until one time I shoulder checked and she was taking a walking break. We regrouped with a little bike double push, a gel, and we were off again with one team behind and one in front, both pushing like mad. I drank a whole bottle on that climb, then went to switch my other bottle from my pocket and... realized I left it at the feed zone after oiling chains. Oops. Not a good spot to go dry. Trish had a second bottle, and from here to aid 2 was net down, had an awesome "dirt jump" track, then gravel road.
The descent was awesome. I came really close to hitting two cows, but other than that it was just jumps and soft dust. At the bottom we hooked left on a path, and I heard crazy sounds in the bush and the bush rustling, then a pig burst out from the left and sprinted in front of me. Relieved, I just chased along, but it would do the smart thing and turn off the trail. Finally it stopped, did a 180, and came right back at/past me, and went back to Trish. Funny little guy was probably having more excitement than usual.
Road to CP2 was nice, fast and fun. We then looped back on some single track along the river that was all smiles... which evaporated thereafter as the last 10k were headwind, rutted farm road climb, muck crossings, barbed wire, overgrown bushes, logs, rocks, and everything that made momentum for more than 25m at a time impossible. Got a quick descent to the Termas de Conaripe. Nice spot. Good food. Lots of muffin tops being tanned and spa'd at this place.
Steve didn't find the hiking compatible with his blister. Gerry survived just ahead of cutoff at aid 2, and stopped taking pictures and hurried more after.
Looks like they rejigged times again last night from what I saw yesterday, whatever, next few days will sort it out. Aside from mechanicals messing it up perhaps, it's been the same order every day.
I felt good today and could climb with Trish; then the flats and headwinds felt just fine too.
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