When I moved up to the Yukon, I decided that I would put together a team for the 2026 KCIBR. In classic me fashion, I only bought my bike about 6 weeks before the race. To add to it, I signed up for the longest leg, too!
Leg 2, running 39.5 km from the Kathleen Lake viewpoint to the St. Elias Lake trailhead, is a nice one. The segment has some ups and downs, and spends some time along beautiful Dezadeash Lake. You could say, however, that I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.
I had spent the prior few weeks cycling into work and mixing in some longer rides on the weekends, but had never yet ridden that long on the bike. As my one teammate said, “don’t marathon runners always say you don’t do the full length before raceday?”
We were set to camp the night before the race. Because we couldn’t reserve a spot at Pine Lake campground for that night, a few of us left early to pick up one of the first-come first-served sites. We got our double-spot (15A and 15B), then went for a drive to Kluane Lake, then back to Kathleen Lake to kill some time before the rest of the team could come.
I rode into town on the bike for a day-before warmup ride and picked up our registration package. By that point, my excitement was getting high. Unfortunately, it rained that evening and so I don’t have any pictures until the next morning when the sun was shining on our site.
I needed to be past the first segment due to my starting Leg 2 and a road closure. The weather was stunning, about 10 degrees, little wind, and blue skies.
Before long, I was off!
I did my leg in about 1:20, which was over 20 minutes faster than I had expected! I was then able to spend the rest of the day cheering people on and enjoying the scenery.
We wound up finishing 4th in our category, which was quite impressive given how relaxed we took it and how we focused on having fun together. After a beautiful salmon dinner in Haines, we headed back to Pine Lake for our next night. A lesson learned is that we should camp overnight in town!
