I woke up to blue skies on Day 5.
Day 5 is, on paper, an "easy" day. The second shortest day at 37km. It has a surprising amount of climbing though. Your legs are also a bit cooked from the long day you just did the day before. I went out at my usual start pace at the beginning and was happily spinning through the starting ascent. It was a glorious day.
The trail was great, the weather was great and I felt great.
Day 5 was the beginning of me going faster and the beginning of the more technical trails. There was a lot more technical features, a lot more technical descents and, in my opinion, more fun.
I followed my usual game plan of eat lots, drink lots and ride to have fun. It worked. I caught up to or passed some of the faster big wheel bikes on the downs and kept close on the ups. There were lots of fun technical features (log skinnies and such) that were super fun. I also got to listen to people get closer to me on the flats only to stop and walk the stuff I rode over; awesome ego boost! I also got to experience Hwy 102. An amazing descent. SO. MUCH. FUN. I tried to hit every feature I could and had two guys from Brazil trailing me as they followed my line (when they saw that I survived). At the end of the race they said thanks for the great lead out even if they did pass me on the last short road ride to the Gibson's ferry parking lot.
The end of Day 5 saw me clean and lube the bike as quickly as I could and hop onto a ferry, still dirty, so I could make the early trip to Squamish for the first of two nights of camping there. The weather was awesome. I just had a great ride. Life was good.