As I stood over the little hedge and vomited I was confused. I had ridden this far before, quite recently in fact. I had ridden in the heat. Why do I feel so sick? Another rider, I didn't know, came over to offer me water and asked if I needed anything. I tried to let him know I was alright in between wretches and thanked him for his water to at least rinse my mouth. I found a weird humour in that one of my main concerns was not that I was sick but I needed fluids and food to ride the next day. Deep down though I knew I was in a bit of trouble.
I think my mistake was made a few hours ago at the start of the race. Thousands of people lined the streets and it was easy to get caught up in the moment and, even if only in my mind, feel little of what Lance must feel. At one stage I saw up the road four blue jerseys that I thought I could latch on to so I dug a little deeper. When I caught them they turned out to be one of the UN teams, all very cut and tanned. It was right there that I had my chance to say ‘Easy, you cant ride with these guys, you’ll blow up’. Did I heed my advice….of course not, I sat on the wheel at 37kph and tried to find a rhythm. A few k’s down the road my legs told me I was doing the wrong thing so I dropped off.
Keeping me occupied was the need to avoid, jump, or ride through the countless potholes, no ‘pothole’ is not the right word, ‘missing pieces of road’ is more accurate. In a road race you spend your time either working on the front of a group in the wind or trying to avoid the wind by hiding behind someone’s wheel. This race was on the road but as there were so many hazards it was not the kind of terrain that allowed a rider to blindly follow a wheel. I was about eighth wheel and had no view ahead when I saw the lead rider ‘bunny hop’. Like a mexican wave the bunny hop approached me down the line of riders and all I could do was use the approaching wave to time my own hop to avoid the hazard that was not visible to me. As I lifted my wheels I saw the foot wide gap running the width of the road, I cleared it. That escape lifted my spirits even more as a crowd of children roared with delight at the manoeuvre.
Then not far from the start the first ‘hill’ appears. It’s a 300m vertical climb over about 5km and I ground my way to the top thinking ‘I may regret my choice of rear cassette’
After the ‘hill’ a catch another group and we ride really well together, calling out hazards “hole!!”….”big hole!!!”…….”goat!!!!!” etc. I am feeling great and during my turn on the front I am resting my elbows on the bars in time trail mode and feeling like I could ride like this all day. Wind forward four hours and I’m starting to feel some problems developing. The hills are starting to hurt and I’m thinking ‘I may regret my choice of rear cassette’. I stop at a stall and buy water and plug on. At about the 100km mark the real climb begins and I’m already knackered. This is a 500m (vertical) climb over 10km and it hurt alot. At one stage I just felt like it was a nice day for a walk. Actually I felt cramps in the calves coming on so I tried to stop them getting worse.
