New day, New Mexico!

Rode late into Friday night, slept out in a field. Huge, huge climbs the following day – the largest I’ve done (I know I said that before, but this time was a climb of 5000 ft to a total of 11,900 ft!) – didn’t help that the road was gravel most of the way, not too gentle on the backside…
Crossed into New Mexico on Saturday, and did a climb in the pouring rain, totally soaked and pretty cold but the sun finally came out.
Pretty interesting at this point to see that there are more riders who have “scratched” (53) than those that are still trucking (45) – or trailing, rather, and exactly the same number of racers that have finished (45).  Even steven!  I can empathize with the riders who decided to call it a day, this ride is far tougher than I ever imagined.  And I’ve put up with much more pain and physical discomfort than I anticipated.  Besides physically, mentally, it’s the biggest test of my life!