By Wednesday of last week, Sarah Max hit what she called the “PPP wall.”

Organizing all the gear and handling all the logistics for an individual racer in the U.S. Bank Pole Pedal Paddle can be overwhelming.

“You have so much stuff you have to do,” Max said. “I was thinking at that point, ‘I can’t wait to start this race. Because this’ll be the first time I’ll be relaxed all week.’ ”

Max, of Bend, relaxed enough Saturday to claim her second consecutive elite women’s title with a time of 2 hours, 2 minutes, 33 seconds, edging out mother-daughter challengers Muffy and Zoe Roy, of Bend. Muffy, 48, was second in 2:03:29, and Zoe, 21, took third in 2:04:24.

Max, 34, was first relieved of PPP stress as her husband, Kevin — who competed in the race’s retro division — drove her up to the start at Mount Bachelor early Saturday.

“That really helped shed some light on the event this morning,” Sarah Max said. “Driving up with him in his 1970s Lycra and his old coat … it really helped put it in perspective: ‘OK, this is supposed to be fun.’”

Max had lots of fun on the 22-mile bike stage, passing the Roys, who both led the defending champion by several seconds coming out of the 8-kilometer cross-country ski. By the time she reached the bike-to-run transition on Colorado Avenue in Bend, Max had a 45-second lead on Zoe Roy and a 2:20 lead on Muffy.

“On the bike, I just tried to push as hard as was comfortable,” Max said. “I decided that I would put my all into every leg, and if I ended up bonking or blowing up then so be it — at least I tried my hardest.”

The Roys are both strong runners, so Max said she was trying not to look over her shoulder during the 10-kilometer run stage. She maintained her lead, then stayed out of trouble on the 2K kayak on the Deschutes River to earn the victory by just under one minute.

The Roys, meanwhile, were satisfied with both finishing in the top three, but the goal was for one of them to win. (Muffy won the women’s individual title in 1994 and 2003).

“We were aiming for one of us on the podium (top three), and it didn’t matter which one,” Muffy said, shortly after giving her daughter a congratulatory hug near the finish line at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. “We got both, and that’s great. This was probably plan B.

“I lost it all on the bike,” she added.

But Muffy gained some ground on the run, passing her daughter — with some words of encouragement — to move into second place.

“I said, ‘Go Zoe, let’s stay in the top three,’” Muffy recounted.

“I knew that the run was one of the places she could pass me,” Zoe said of her mother. “I don’t know if I was expecting it, but I knew it was possible. I tried to stay with her but I couldn’t. I told her to catch Sarah.”

Zoe Roy raced the PPP as an individual when she was 12 and again when she was 18. A Summit High School graduate and a cross-country skier at the University of Utah, she returned home from college for the summer just last week.

“I was probably a little more prepared this time,” Zoe said. “The other ones, I really didn’t know what I was doing.”

Max said she is not sure whether she will return to next year’s PPP to try for a third straight individual title.

“I’m just going to take it one year at a time,” she said. “Sometimes it looks tempting to do it as a pair or a team, but we’ll see.

“This race pushes me to the limit.”