Mental Endurance: The Fatigue Is Real
Stage 3 has me standing in front of the mirror asking myself whether I can line up for Stage 4.
If I thought Stage 2 was tough, Stage 3 gave me a metaphorical spanking.
At 66.6km and “only” 442m of elevation, you’d be forgiven for thinking this couldn’t possibly be harder than the California Hilly Route. You’d be wrong.
Like Stage 2, I sat in the start pens with my usual cocktail of anxiety and dread, my personal barometer for what counts as “hard” in this series having been reset completely, yet again. Sure enough, there was a bump less than a kilometre into the race, and my fatigued legs did what fatigued legs do; I was instantly dropped.
I soon found my people: the second-half finishers, the battlers... the unsung heroes. I settled in as best I could and tried not to think about what was still ahead.
What was ahead
What was ahead, you ask? Not one but two trips up the Hudayriyat Climb, 5.6km at 2.4%, adding 134m to the ledger each time, none of it gratefully received.
Over the 10km run-in to the climb, I shared the workload with Gareth Skw, Oscar H and Bjorn Roar Indal, names I was becoming increasingly familiar with as these stages wore on. This was also the first stage, and really my first time on MyWhoosh full stop, where I actually felt wind, proper headwind, the kind this course’s long flat sections seem built to deliver. Our little group breathed in and out like something alive: three riders, then five, then seven, back to four, back to seven again, right up until we hit the climb.
kgself, in the chat, informed me that the climb contained nine distinct steps and hairpins, with the gradient kicking up and then flattening off. Put that way, it sounded almost manageable. Almost.
The climb, and the man who saved my stage
My aim was clear: stay with the small group for as long as humanly possible. Remarkably, I actually managed that for the first 1.5km, before three of the group rode clear, stranding me in the middle with a couple of riders trailing behind, including Pawel Twardy and my soon-to-be best mate, though I didn’t know it yet, Bjorn.
Pawel eased past me around halfway up, right as the Cat 6 leaders started flying the other way on their descent. I pressed on regardless, reaching the 16.6km mark and the final kick to the top, then the U-turn, then the quick way back down.
Jessica Hamilton, who’s been in my chat the entire series, feeding me tips, intel and general encouragement, was cheering me on as I hit the bottom. And this is where Bjorn came to the rescue.
I was struggling. No point pretending otherwise. Bjorn slowly reeled me in, catching me around the 26.5km mark, and then did something genuinely kind: he eased off, sat on the front, and towed me for the best part of the next 8 kilometres, handing me whatever scraps of draft he had against a 12-13km/h headwind on the flats. It helped more than I can really explain. Thanks, Bjorn. I owe you one, and I hope I get the chance to pay it back.
Back on my own
After that, it was back to a solo time-trial effort, with the second ascent of the climb looming somewhere in my near future. My goal was to hold 90th or better, and when Oscar H came past me, I’d more or less resigned myself to another disappointment, right up until I passed Franklyn Vergara, who I suspect was dealing with some kind of mechanical issue. 90th spot was back on the table!
I’d love to tell you I found a second wind and the second climb felt easier than the first. That would be a lie. If the first ascent took 15 minutes, the second was even slower, but I made it to the top and back down again. No man, including myself, was left behind.
Cat 5s, Cat 4s, Cat 3s (you get the idea) streamed past me both up and down that climb, a steady reminder of exactly where I sit in this platform’s food chain.
Back on the flat, I passed Tommy Watts, somewhat to my own surprise, picking up another place I hadn’t expected. Tommy messaged me afterwards to explain he’d had technical issues of his own and limped to the finish somewhere between 30 and 90 watts. Ouch. Genuinely, ouch.
Eventually, I crossed the line. Another stage done.
Oh, and where was Simon, you might be wondering? He was well clear of me for this entire Stage, finishing minutes ahead. I’m still in 85th place, and Simon has edged closer in 87th. Well done mate, but neither you nor I are off the hook yet!
The question I didn’t expect to be asking
Everyone keeps saying the stages only get harder from here, and for the first time in this campaign, I found myself genuinely wondering whether I can see this thing through to the end.
That’s not a sentence I write lightly, and it’s not really like me. I’ve ridden 250km, 5,000m Audax events in the Australian heat. I recently finished FRR’s own Triquetra series, 21 stages in 23 days. Just the other week, I climbed for 12 hours straight, 5,000 vertical metres (through the night), for charity. Against that record, I’m standing in front of the mirror asking myself whether I can line up for Stage 4, let alone finish all seven. That’s confronting. It’s forcing some genuinely uncomfortable questions.
And I’m not acting overly dramatic about it. Well, maybe a little. Stage 4 is 68.3km with 1,110m of elevation across three climbs this time. When I say three climbs, I mean one climb we do three times, because why not. For those that know it, it’s the Dragon Fury Climb, an apt name I’m sure, same rough distance as the stage 2 climbs, but considerably more difficulty with a 4.3% average gradient. The question tonight isn’t the course.
It’s getting back on the bike at all.