I woke up today feeling tired and sluggish. I had a good night sleep as the night was cool and I was not overheating in bed like in the last days. But still didn’t feel energetic to start the day. With two major climbs and a lot of rollimg hills I knew from the beginning I would be in trouble.
The first 50 kms of the day was going thru the back farm roads of South France. Rolling hills of 8% inclination one after the other. But that was OK. Once we got to the first mountain I was trying to eat and do as little “push” as possible, staying behind the team all the time. Things went relatively OK.
The first climb was the Hourquette d'Ancizan, which reaches 1564 meters of hight. It is a constant 8 to 9% climb for exactly 10 kilometers with long straight lines that I really struggle to go thru. I started climbing as last and only managed to pass two of the team. Every time my heart would go beyond 135 bpms, I would run out of breath and the legs would burn like hell. It was just a game of patience to get to the top. I was very happy to see the van and sit down to recover.
Sadly the theme of the second part of the day unveiled itself: cold and foggy. We couldn’t see anything from the top and it was cold with 13 degrees. I tell you, that is cold when you are dressed in wet thin lycra. I stayed as little I could still trying to stay with the team. But I was getting so cold that I left alone. The downhill was scary at the beginning with visibility of only 20 meters. But after 3 or 4 kilometers, it cleared up and it was quite fast.
ANIMALS - One interesting thing that happen during the descend was that I almost collided with a cow! The animal decided to cross the road right when I was coming and I had the distinct impression that she looked at me before she started walking and decided to blocked me down. I could even imagine I saw a little smile as she gaslighted me! Luckily I was quite slow and nothing happen other than I had to go in the grass beside the road. And that side of the mountain had also donkeys and horses!
TOURMALET - We regrouped and went down together to the foot of the second and last mountain of the day. The famous Col du Tourmalet, with a total of 16 kms and even steeper than the previous mountain. My goal was to get to the hotel, in the village of La Mongie, 4 kms from the top. Which meant we would climb 12 kms.
We started all together in the village of Saint Marie de Canpam but immediately Dale and Paul took off. I was dead last and could see Cliff was just 20 meters ahead of me and I wanted to see if I could step up a little and stay with him. It is always easier to climb if you have someone to keep pace with you. I did a little push and managed to get to him quickly.
From them on my goal was to see if I could generate power enough to stay with Cliff or at least maintain visual contact. At that moment I could bring my heart rate a little higher than before, maintained it around 145 bpm. But not to my usual 152. Anyway, I managed to stick with him for 6 kms and with 6 kms to La Mongie, I started to get tired and had to let him go.
But I wanted to stay in visual contact and played a game to achieve that. Every time he would pass a landmark, something like a sign or a light pole, I would count how many seconds, trying to not let it grow beyond 1 minute. And in the last kilometer I could see him getting closer, so I did an extra dig of energy to finish together. Very happy that I managed that and in some moments I could see Paul in the distance, something like 1 kilometers ahead of me.
Now, recharge for tomorrow and see if I can get more energy.
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