Round and round we go

Stage 41
Day Total: 86.65km
Total Time: 6:43
Avg. Speed: 12.9km/h
Avg. Heart Rate: 127bpm
Total Climbing: 1009m

It is over thankfully. Part mountain bike ride, part test of will and intestinal fortitude, this stage left no ambiguity as to what it wanted to be: extremely difficult and uniquely memorable. A road that would not give away anything and a sturdy headwind to squelch any thoughts of tactics were the only company on an otherwise desolate road.

Turn right out of camp, pedal 10 feet, and start suffering. That’s really all there was to this ride. The “road” altered its structure occasionally from a single dual-track strip to two dual-track strips (presumably for northbound and southbound traffic) which meant at times a rider had 4 options from which to choose. Choice in this case really meant selecting whether you wanted loose gravel on your right or left. I will not drone on and on about the nature of this road as it really can’t be fully described. Suffice it to say that it was like riding on a badly corrugated single track path that was covered with loose pieces of golfball-sized lava rock. When void of loose rock, the bare, exposed rock protruding from the track jarred one’s body to the point of numbness. Oh yeah, that 25mph headwind never abated either.

In the end we would all ride our rides. The lunch truck, sporting a 45-minute headstart, did not make it to the designated lunch spot before me. Not wanting to wait for it, I stopped at a small shop 10km earlier to chug a coke and grab 2 liters of water. When I did arrive at lunch, the truck was absent, and full of water, I kept going. I would later learn that a “basic” lunch was sent ahead with the bigger trucks for the faster riders. Guess I missed that memo…

In any case, the ride continued in a slow slog. The “relativity” coping strategy I described previously broke down immediately: this ride was beyond compare and harder than any other I had ever done. A long, desolate stretch awaited me from 40km to the designated “refresh stop” at 67km. It took nearly 2.5 hours to cover the 27km and was just long enough to let me exhaust all of my fluids. Brutal.

Fortunately, the last 10km actually turned into a groomed dirt road, though by this time I was cooked. Normally I feel a surge of excitement and relief as we enter a town. Marsabit provided only frustration as all of the cars insisted on driving on the wrong side (which is the left-hand side) of the road. But hey, at least this beast was nearly dead.

I will provide more commentary on this ride later as it was a very unique experience. For now I must eat and sleep…