Thanks everyone for their comments!

It was fun blogging and keeping in touch with everyone during the race week. Your comments were very anticipated and appreciated every day. One puzzler - could "JDA" identify his or her self? For the life of us we are at a loss :)
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Day 7 and 8

We are starting to get giddy and having difficulty sleeping on the hard ground. At 2 am Trevor got up to pee and returned to the tent accidentally waking Stuart up. Trevor immediately slapped on his eye shade and stuffed in his ear plugs and went back to sleep Stuart took the opportunity to get up and pee also so as he very sleepily got out of his sleeping bag he set it up so it would be easy to get back into it in the dark and with eyes closed. Stuart returned to the tent and began to climb in the sleeping bag but cold not figure out where the opening was. Wrong tent? No everything else was familiar. Then Trevor started to snort and shake and then broke out in histerics. He had flipped the bag around after Stuart left the tent. We ended up both having the biggest belly laugh ever. At 2 am our neighbors probably wanted to kill us and I wanted to kill Trevor.
So day 7 proved to be quite punishing after all but exhilarating at the same time. The race followed trails in and around Whistler that were created by a legendary builder who is known for linking , flowy, technical and demanding trails.
The gun went off and we immediately started gaining elevation at an alarming rate climbing 700 m in the first 10 km. It is amazing that the body recovers to a point it can support our weight never mind climb a mountain after 6 days of racing.
We pleasantly found our selves riding with the second and third place womens team most of the day and groups who would normally be ahead of us in previous days which kept us motivated. Even more motivating was Team 204, one of our category rivals, passed us at the 12 km mark of the 47 km course They had been moving up the field and we were the next on their list They had made 11 mins on us the day before to put them within 11 mins of taking our place away. We held onto them and jockied most of the day but they ended up getting away from us in the last 10 km. Despite our efforts, we felt we were ok to let them go, as it would take a flat or break down for them to make up 11 min in 10 km. They had a great race but were only able to make 5 mins on us.
Team Winded was 12/46 on the day and 16/46 for the entire race
It is interesting to observe the differences in riding styles between the top women and grunts like us. What the women lack in upper body strength and risk taking they make up in finesse. Men tend to muscle their way through and willing to ride the skinny or launch down drops Gorillas compared to Gazelles, consequently there were more impact injuries to men than women from bouncing off trees or falling off bridges.

Another amazing story was a racer on a team from Mexico bike broke in half on one of the descents near the end. They wanted to finish so badly so they strapped the parts to their back and hiked across the finish line.

We had a great wrap up party at the round house at the top of Whistler, said our thank yous and good byes to the many amazing people we met and had a great night sleep at the Westin. We are now packing and getting ready for the ride back to the Airport for our 4 pm flight back home

Pain is temporary, quiting is forever.... Lance Armstrong

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We eat large!

According to our cycling computers we are burning 5000 to 7000 calories per day.
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Day 6 The Final Stage at Whistler

Its 5:30 am as we write this. The aches and pains are starting to settle in. Perhaps an Advil would go well with the Shreddies this morning
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More day 6 pics of Wally and family

Day 6.... and they call it "Test of Metal"

We spent our day on trails around Squamish, and the trials are not for the squeamish. By way of comparison, they more technical that pretty much anything at Fortune, or like Kanata Lakes, but make the whole loop all downhill at 30 degrees.

Some horrendous climbs at the beginning, like "Bonk Hill", gaining. 700 m before plunging back into the valley on crazy steep and rocky single track. Amazingly only a few bad injuries so far. Other than the 15 cases of heat stroke (which in fact is a low amount considering 500 riders is terrible heat), there was 1 concussion, 3 separated shoulders, 1 separated elbow, 1 broken wrist i.e. 6 hard injuries. We figure there is about 15000 rider hours in this race, giving a rate of injury of 1 every 2500 hours. Of course this is for experienced riders, but tired riders too. It seems really very supportive data to the assertion that mountain biking is super safe. Imagine the injury rate with a bunch of triathletes doing 7 Olympic Tris in a row ? :)

Stuart thought Trevor would be another addition to the injury list as he came over a rise to see Trevor off over the handles bars and off the trail with his bike on top of him. The video guy happened to catch it all on film ....will be appearing in a theatre near you. With just a little whining, he was on his bike again and we both finished the day solidly in 16/46, holding our spot. After we finished, it "turns" out (if you'll excuse the pun) that Trevors rear rotor was seriously warped, meaning bad brake rub, stealing a gear or two of power. Trevor noticed his climbing went downhill on the "Bonk Hill" uphill (again excusing the puns), so we figure the disk took a hit on the just prior single track.

Trevor's friend Alain aka Wally from Ottawa (presently working in Vancouver), and his family met us at dinner. A complete surprise to see some familiar faces. Hopefully, we will see them at the finish line tomorrow.
As you can see by the photo he is a little confused about where the Inflatables are placed relative to Team Winded. "What's with that?"

The team we made 17 mins on yesterday was a minute ahead today. Mike Livingston lives an Morocco and will be moving to China next month. A reminder to exchange emails and arrange a visit when Stuart and Heather visit there hopefully next year. It is really nice having a friendly rivalry with - we have been calling them "our nemesis", and with the luxury of them being ahead of us, they have been calling "us annoying" well Trevor anyway :)

Day 7 promises some very famous single track, and at 45km not too punishing ... hopefully!

Cheers,
Stuart and Trevor.

Day5 - best yet

So the trail named "HWY 103" is the trail of dreams.

13km of sometimes incredibly fast, loamy and carvy track to the other times highly tight steep and technical descents .... and just littered with skinnys and bridges just to mix it up a bit. I can't think of a better way to end a race stage, particularly in such beautiful Pacific rainforest. Trevor was on fire for the big descent ("I have never laid down a bike like that in my life!!"), and Stu was on him like sticky on honey ("chasing the Turbo"). *Everybody* at the end of this stage was all smiles !!

Team Winded beat a few teams today we were gunning for, putting 17 minutes on team #102 "Giant/Cyclepath Calgary", and about 10 minutes on team #29 "Big Ring Racing Ripped Ninja Squad" from Ottawa. And we even beat the #4 girls team #148 "Steed Sistas" - we can now consider ourselves amongst the top womens teams :)

Polysporin was at a premium. So much so, a women at the medical tent with a minor scrape was not going to let Stuart have a dab for a dime sized blister. She insisted she needed the whole six inch tube of it for her 5 inch scape.
Stuart: "But I just need a little dab"
Woman: "I'm sorry, I really need it for my scrape, and I walked an hour in the sun to get this, why don't you get your own in town?"
Stuart walks over, but the shuttle to town is jam packed. He walks back ...
Stuart: "Please, just a little dab!! See? it is this for this penny sized blister on my hand ... where I hold the handlebar ... all day long tomorrow "
Woman: "I'm sorry"

Last evening wasn't all so bad though, after dinner, Brooks, the medical director, gave some really great advice: "don't eat poop" and discussed ways to avoid passing on sickness.
"Wash your hands after you poop.....with soap and water. The soap is an astringent and will loosen the poop from your hands and the water will rinse it away. Use a paper towel to turn the tap off because they also will have poop"
To bad Trevor missed Brooks announcement because he usually finds any talk about bodily functions really funny.
One more thing for all you folks who ride with Trevor. Remember to keep reminding him not to blow his nose when you ride behind him..it will eventually have an affect if we all keep repeating it. The term "Belgium Mist" stopped being cute around the 3rd time Stuart got a face full of snot.

Tomorrow will be quite difficult, so the remains of the day is for R&R - rest and recover.

Cheers,
Stuart and Trevor.