Round and round we go

Day Total: 150km

Total Time: 4:12:00

Avg. HR: 152bpm

Avg. Speed: 35.3 km/h (including lunch break)

Song of the Day: Foo Fighters – Learn to Fly

The time has moved forward an hour, but still everyone wakes up at the same time. Today this was probably a good thing as it would be the first time we fully loaded all of our belongings into our locker. With all of the rustling about, I was awake by 5:15 am and packed up well ahead of schedule. My 2nd bag, tent, and sleeping pad all fit like a glove and with that I found myself with a lot of extra time. At 6:25am, the official camp “alarm clock” sounded – it is a stereo system built into one of the trucks – blaring the “Bicycle” song (by the Who – I think). It definitely created a positive energy within the camp and proved a welcome deviation from the prayer call alarm clock of the previous week. I spent the balance of my time munching on my breakfast sandwich (pita, peanut butter, bananas, and yes, honey) and watching the victories, trials, and tribulations at the interface of baggage and locker. Some were well prepared, some miserably less so. One German was alotted a second locker simply for the sake of ensuring the trucks left on time that morning, but still he could not fit all of his stuff inside. He has some issues to say the least.

 
Opportunity. I had it today. I seized it today. I fell a bit short today. Technically I was about 33% short, but hey, who’s really counting? The timing system used by the race system has created a bit of last-minute dot com effect with racers not wanting to scan in for the day until the last person is ready to go. The mentality makes sense as you avoid scanning in minutes ahead of fellow racers only to be swallowed up by the group and spot them a 2 minute advantage.

With that in mind, I decided I was OK with losing a couple of minutes in exchange for the ability to warm-up at my own pace. I started riding, two riders went with me. We went slowly for 5km and the pack did not join us. 10km, 15km, 20km passed and still no sign of them. At that point, with the race leader Paul Wolf behind me, I decided I would just pick a reasonable speed – roughly the average pace we had been maintaining in prvious days – and keep constant speed until they caught me, I reached lunch, or reached the finish. The kilometers clicked away and at about 40km, race leader Paul started picking up the pace a bit. I figured fine – we’ll take turns and maybe, just maybe, we get to lunch ahead of everyone else. At 60km, we began to absolutely fly and the thoughts turned quickly to how best to speed through the lunch stop and maximize our advantage. By 70km, I was hanging on for my sweet life, spurred on by the fact that Paul and I had made an agreement that I could have the stage win if we held everyone off to the finish.

The 80km lunch break arrived quickly (we were going roughly 45km/h at this point) and we removed our biking gloves (tour rules to prevent food contamination) while rolling to a stop. A quick hand wash, two full bottles, a slather of peanut butter on a pita, and we were rolling out of lunch in less than 4 minutes. The break felt good, but I really could have done with more rest. We calculated that with the size of the chase group, they would easily take ~10 minutes at lunch and figured we had just won a minor victory.

The pace continued, quickly I might add. And by quick I mean I was selling my soul to keep up and eat my sandwich at the same time. By 90km, I was showing some slight cracks, and finally at 101km, I sat up a bit on a long, steady stretch of the highway as it turned upward. Paul looked back at me and asked simply “Are you done?”. I figured I might hang in there for another 10 to 15km, but that the cost would be extreme and I would really suffer the rest of the day and for days to come. I answered the only way I could: “That’s all I’ve got”. With that I bid him farewell and he powered off into the distance. The guy is an impressive machine, more impressive when you consider his age of 56 (he was the runner-up at last year’s World Championships for his age group). His purpose his clear, his preparations singular, and his focus all encompassing. This guy wants to win this race. I do too, but I know I cannot beat this guy on smooth, paved roads.

I rolled on by myself, recovering a bit, pushing as hard as I could through the lunar-like landscape. I saw perhaps 6 humans the whole day and about as many vehicles. This land is awesome in its nearly complete desolation. The winds continued their favorable dance, blowing strongly from behind so that even riding alone I managed long stretches at speeds in excess of 43 km/h. At 135km, I saw the chasers closing, 4 of them riding single file, the lead two down on their time-trial/aero bars. They were clearly not happy about how the day had gone and they were closing at an alarming rate. A brief, gruff “Hello” was all I got as they blew by. UK Paul eased up and we rode together for about 5km until I realized I was perhaps slowing him a bit. I would finish the day 5th, very worked over by my efforts, but content with the fact that I had put it all out there. You can’t win them all, and with the depth, experience, talent, and complete disregard for the length of the race exhibited by this year’s racing field, I’ll be hard pressed to win any of them…

Setting tents today we had an audience of locals from the nearby village. The village was quite small, a couple of hundred people and nothing more than small, simple, mud buildings. I was impressed by the politeness and pride with which these people presented themselves, their behavior putting one at ease immediately. This is a stark contrast to many of the Egyptians we interacted with who made one feel on edge as if one had to be on the defense to avoid being taken advantage of or otherwise swindled. Coupled with a refreshing dip in the Nile, it was a great first day in Sudan.

Tomorrow’s 150km into another desert camp will likely hurt a bit more than usual as a result of today’s effort. Time will tell…