Le moment de jour “the moment of the day”…it’s amazing how little things can make such a big difference…
After riding over 5 serious climbs (well at least 4 serious climbs and one pseudo climb), gaining 4600m elevation, and then riding an extra 28km at the end to total 180, just to gain an extra point in the “Yellow Jersey competition”, I decided to head out for 10km run. I rationalized the choice to run because I need to build up my run volume in preparation for Ironman Mont Tremblant and it would also give me another bonus point in the Yellow jersey competition.
What I neglected to account for was the fact that I had spent 8hrs24min on the bike and that it was still 32C outside. In retrospect grabbing a water bottle would have been a smart choice. After running for 2 miles my mouth was dry and all I could think about was water. I kept waiting to see a tap or someone with a bottle of water and I was practicing in my head “es que je peut avoir un peut de l’eau si vous plait”. I was now looking into every yard I passed hoping someone would be there or a water tap would be accessible. Then I came around a corner and there was the most glorious water fountain with water gushing out of it. I could already taste the cold water, but as I approached I noticed the massive sign. L’EAU EST NON POTABLE. I thought about ignoring it but didn’t want to get sick for the remainder of the camp. So, instead, I took off my shirt and dunked it and my head in the cold fountain, then put on my ice cold shirt and continued my run. It felt good for about 10minutes and then the dry mouth affect returned. I had turned around and was heading back towards the hotel now. I saw two boys about 10 years old goofing around on their mountain bikes up ahead of me. Maybe they had some water…ironically they stopped at the same fountain I had stopped at and my heart sunk when I saw that they were filling their water bottles in it. Maybe they knew something I didn’t but I still didn’t want to risk drinking “l’eau non potable”.
As I ran towards them one of the boys was staring at me intently. He appeared to be completely engaged in watching me run and he said with complete sincerity, “courage monsieur”. Maybe it was the hypoglycemic & dehydrated state that I was in, but his words were so sincere that it gave me the motivation to push past the lack of water and hypoglycemia and to run a bit harder in the last 2 miles of my run.
Overall the day was a very long day on the bike. I felt pretty sluggish on the first climb with John, George, and Phil over l’Aubisque.
Then I felt slightly better on the short climb of le Soulor. On the Tourmalet there was no way I was going to stay with George and John so I just road my own pace.
The day was really heating up and I had a pretty rough time on the descent of the Tourmalet with my quads and my back cramping pretty significantly. I was crawling up the first half of le col D’Aspin before getting to the designated lunch spot. A few calories helped a lot and I made it up the steep portions better and rode strong up le Peyresourde. It was then that I made the mental choice not to head right to the hotel but rather to tack on the extra kilometres to total 180km and also to do the 10km run.
Totals for the day: 180km cycling and 10km running
9h22min total training time.
Tomorrow is a bit less time on the bike with a 10km or 20km run in the morning and then a bike to lake- swim- bike back from lake.
Epic Camp France 2019 