Round and round we go

Day Total: 95 Km
Total Time: 6:06
Avg. HR: 113bpm
Avg. Speed: 15.2km/h
Song of the Day: Asia – Sole Survivor

Sometime around 11pm last night I woke up and thought, wow, I don’t feel too ill at the moment. I was sweating heavily but that could have been due to the heat. 2 hours later I was stumbling through the brush to let my body violently eject what I ate the night before, it arbitrarily choosing the rear exit as if it made any difference to my comfort. I stumbled back to my tent and managed to fall back asleep in my own sweat, my only solace being the spray bottle I filled with water to “mist” myself.

I woke up at 5:30am and was ready to vomit. I tried to pack my stuff and nearly puked. I ran for the bushes 2 more times for a double-encore to my moonlight performance. Screwed. 100% screwed. My dad picked up on this and left me to only deal with my sleeping pad and stuff my bag. He took down the tent. He carried my bags to the truck and put them in the locker. He put the tent in the locker. He filled my water bottles. He filled my camelback. He found the pump so I could top up my tires. There was no was eating breakfast. With nothing to do myself, I was ready well ahead of schedule. Heading east to the road, I sauntered with my bicycle towards a spectacular sunrise to find a way to get my bike to lunch. Not sure what I was doing, I kept reassuring myself that I was better off than ridng the truck because the truck would be hot and would not necessarily stop if I were sick or needing to evacuate my bowels.

I pedaled slowly, the morning air refreshingly cool for a change. I focused on staying on the bike, turning the pedals, and not vomiting. My watch beeped every 5 minutes to remind me to drink but sometimes I just couldn’t be bothered to put the drinking tube in my mouth. People gradually caught me and passed me, offering a word of encouragement here and there. The race group caught me and Paul gave me a pat on the back as they rocketed past me as if I were standing still. I was barely moving.

Not much else to say. I made it to lunch, sat there for 70 minute in stifling heat and tried to eat something. Grapefruit, an energy bar and a bottle of energy drink was all I could manage. The anti-nausea pill wasn’t working too well at all so I just left lunch to attempt to ride another 35km in the heat and make it to camp. I don’t remember much, other than the ever-present children on the roadside yelling “You you you you you you”. A coke stop appeared at 86km so I stopped because other people were there. Chris F bought me a coke and I managed to get it down. Gee, cycling the length of the continent. Bloody great idea. I can’t feel my ribs except for when I need to blow my nose (which is often) or cough (which happens a lot in response to my combatting my vomiting). A big hill appeared, so I changed gears. I was riding in the smallest chainring of the 3 and moving at 7km/h. Flying now. Yeah. I caught up to Chris F on the climb, he was cursing the hill. I led by example and dismounted, not surprised that my walking speed was only 1.6km/h slower than my riding speed. I dry heaved but kept walking.

We arrived at camp which was essentially some small barnyard of a local village complete with an active hay threshing operation, piles of animal crap everywhere, and curious Ethiopians with no sense of respect or personal space (a stark contrast to the politeness of the Sudanese). I forgot to scan in on the timing system. Somebody gave me a foam mat and I passed out in the shade. I layed there for hours and my dad set up my tent, got my bags, brought me drinks, pain meds, a change of clothes. Bastiaan came and sat with me a bit, talking to me about why I wanted to ride every single inch of the way. Oddly, I could only give reasons external to myself. More miserable than I can ever remember physically being I crawled into my tent. I popped an antibiotic as I readied for bed, a desparation effort at some form of relief. Tomorrow would be another day and for the moment I did not want to think about making a decision to ride or not. In this moment, I only hoped to wake up without feeling like I needed to puke my guts out while sitting inside my tent.