Just Keep Pedalling

I’ve written it on this blog before, and it’s still true, Die Burger is one of my favourite rides of the year. It’s a ride I look forward to immensely, and it has never failed to live up to expectations. The anticipation this year though came with a large dose of reality. I knew from the outset it was going to be a very different ride to last year. At 5km longer, and without the DC-conditioned legs or the strong tail wind chasing us home, it was clearly going to be a significantly slower ride.

With no PBs on offer, and training having been limited by my neck injury, it was important to be realistic about what Die Burger would be for me this year: the next stage of my rehabilitation; an opportunity to push myself and discover where I am at fitness wise using the backdrop of a familiar ride. Those thoughts in mind, I set off in the car just before dawn with a simple set of goals for the event:

• improve my usual poor pacing, go out hard but keep just enough in reserve for the tough stretch home
• push beyond my recent training levels, but without cramping up towards the end
• see if riding without energy drinks avoids the bonks but doesn’t leave me out of gas
• don’t lose my group as we swing around the back of Paarl – my nemesis section, which almost always sees me struggling alone in the wind as my bunch rides away
• have fun! 

All of the these were looking to have some added help by virtue of starting with several Wannabee team mates.  Around 6 or 7 of us all line up in the chute together, huddling against the cold wind in the dark of the morning. But we were down to just 3 by the time Helshoogte had done it’s worst, and strong blasts of head-on South Easter had shredded us on the stretch after towards Franschhoek. Hendrik, Ron and myself then passed each repeatedly down the super fast section towards Paarl – the wind now at our backs, were holding speeds of 45 to 50km/h without really digging into the red zone.

Swinging right off the R301 and into the vineyards, brought up the biggest of the above tests – not getting dropped. And here, riding with Hendrik and Ron really helped. We not only stayed together, but were in the front third of our bunch, at times taking our turns working at the front. What a transformation from the last couple of years. Despite blasting along to this point, the legs had plenty left in them. There was an added reward at the end of my nemesis loop through the vineyards too – I’d broken the jinx, and now we were being treated to a new route. Rather than heading into the outskirts of Paarl, we swung right and the leg into Wellington was through glorious rolling farmland and on freshly resurfaced smooth tar too. Heavenly!

The wind had been blustery and troubling so far, but rolling back onto the familiar route just before Wellington it became a real factor. Climbing up over Windmeul on the R44, I slowly slipped back and detached from both Ron and Hendrik. I wasn’t struggling especially, but with the rolling hills and wind I needed to fall back to a sustainable pace for the remaining 45km. The fresh road surface this time was less of a help. Rather than rolled smooth, it was rough and sticky and full of large stone chips. My average speed dropped steadily, but even with the wind and the rough road, I was managing to keep in the 25 to 30km/h region for long stretches. It was all fine, I was having fun.

The cramps were never far away over the final 20km or so, but with a careful choice of gearing combination and cadence I kept them away and finished just a shade over 3:30. Seemed like most friends I spoke too had been 20 or 30 minutes slower than the previous year, so even with limited training, it wasn’t a terrible time. Most importantly though, I’d achieved every one of the goals I’d started with. A perfect rehab ride.

I haven’t written in a while. I haven’t ridden in a while. And pictured left is how my DC started this year – with the support drivers breakfast at the Wimpy in Swellendam. So clearly this blog isn’t really going to be about riding either, well not entirely anyway.

With the sparsity of blog entries, I need to go back a month and fill in the gaps to explain how I got here. Back to the One Tonner, which was my last ride with our DC Team. It ended badly with a rare DNF for me. Swinging left in Malmesbury the easy 100km were over and the full force of the strong South Easter blasted away the last of my will to finish the ride, triggering severe cramps which were the final ride ending blow. Luckily my friend Peter Nolan was nearby, and I grabbed the last available spot in his car to hitch a ride home. At the time I was angry with my team mates for dropping me, but in hindsight the blame was really all mine – the culmination of a series of misjudgements on my part.

The first of these errors was earlier that day, not being nearly clear or forceful enough with my other team mates about the need to stick together and ride together. With some very strong riders in the squad, we were already broken up and strung out over the first climb of the day. Despite a number of re-groupings after that, the early pace in catching the faster riders soon told in both my legs and those of some other riders. Just over Bothmaskloof my neck started to stiffen badly, and I just didn’t have the legs to catch and keep up with the group for a third time. My ride was over.

The real error though had been months back when I’d ignored all my instincts and agreed to take part in the DC. I’d read many reports about it taking weeks or months to fully recover from the physical effects of a ride like LEL. I knew there was a significant chance that I would not be in shape to train properly for a ride as demanding as the DC. My heart over-ruled my head and I found myself committed to a ride and struggling to put in enough time on the bike with my LEL induced neck injury. It was only ever going to end one way, and that end came by the side of the road in Malmesbury.

Over the next few days the team went through a major blow up as I wasn’t the only rider unhappy with the fragmentation and lack of group riding spirit on the day. It was a necessary process though, and when passions subsided the team was short of a few riders, but team spirit had been fully restored. The aftermath of the storm had also resolved the long problematic spot of our team support driver. Unable to ride, and with a car almost tailor made as a backup vehicle, it was an easy decision for me to make. I could still contribute towards the team’s DC even if my work would not be on the bike.

So here we all were – at the backup drivers breakfast. All Wannabee teams were safely on their way, and we had an hour or more to relax before needing to be at the first team support point, the feed zone in Ashton. William had kindly loaned me his trailer, which was loaded with the rider’s coolboxes, water and ice. One of my club mates, Charles Nesbitt, was riding with me as support crew and spotter as we drove towards Ashton. It was a beautiful sunny day, a total contrast to last year.

The team arrived at the support point much later than we’d expected. Marc had suffered a severe mechanical, and they were already down to 11 riders even though the race was only half done. Somehow though, he’d managed to get his bike fixed and was only minutes behind them – he looked shattered and must have turned himself inside out to make up the lost ground.

The remaining 100km of the ride Charles and I followed the team. There were two pre-planned water stops where we packed out the full trailer, coolboxes lined up along the road for easy access. We also had a couple of unplanned stops for mechanicals, and a quick water refill towards the end as the heat kicked in. We got lucky with the unplanned stops in having a decent space to get the car fully off the road – although in one case I nearly misjudged the mass of cyclists all around and only at the last minute corrected my course into the small turn off, narrowly averting disaster.

It was interesting and very different to see the riders from behind, and gave a totally different perspective on the ride. Despite having ridden the DC last year, I was also struck by just how tough a ride it is, especially over those last 50km as legs tired, wind and heat rose, and the killer rolling hills reared up one after the other. It was with some pride we saw the guys still together as a full team of 12 up that last hill – Charles commented that no other team around us still had all of their riders. They’d overcome the divisions from the One Tonner, and a few niggles around the 130km mark and done the impossible. They had become a team, cohesive and working together, and getting each other to the finish as a complete team. Despite not being on the bike, it was great to have been a part of it.

It’s now a month since LEL ended, and at last I’m starting to feel like my body is beginning to recover from the battering it received. Two weeks after the ride I jumped back on the bike and went for a DC team training ride. At first, everything felt good – the bike now nice and light with bags and audax paraphernalia removed. It was a grey, cold and wet day with some rain as we rolled into Paarl. Despite the weather, I wasn’t feeling too bad as we slogged up the 18km long climb of Du Toits kloof pass – a higher climb than anything LEL had thrown at me. I could definitely feel the strength in my legs from all that long distance training, and I’m pretty sure if I compared my time to the top it would be significantly quicker than on last year’s DC training.

All was not 100% though, which I began to realise back down in Paarl as we rolled out from a water and snack stop at the Spa. I wasn’t at all comfortable on the bike. My neck and shoulders were beginning to get sore again, my knees were burning, and I was struggling to even keep up our moderate 23 to 25km/h pace. By this stage we had the sweep vehicle all to ourselves, and every now and then I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. It took a mountain of willpower over the last 40km or so not to just dismount and get in. I was hurting, I was cold, and I simply wasn’t enjoying the ride even with good company of my team-mates.

The week after I gave in, and finally went to see the physio as Yoli had been pleading with me to do for several days. I’m extremely stubborn when it comes to pain and doctors, but with the joy of riding stripped from my week something had to be done. It took the physio no time at all to sign me off from any further riding or training involving back and shoulder muscles, and that done she proceeded to prod, poke, pull, and push every conceivable point of pain in my neck that could be found. It was agony, but with every stab something also seemed to release. After some time lying with acupuncture needles stuck in me and a hot pack on my neck, I was sent on my way with a batch of stretching exercises and an appointment for the following week.

With great relief, after diligently working on the stretching, at the next session I was cleared to try two sessions on the bike. The first was a short 45 minute session on the indoor trainer. As well as getting me pedaling again, such a short session had the added benefit of forcing me to pick one of the videos I don’t often train with: Fight Club – a hectic blur or 16 consecutive maximum intensity intervals, 1 minute each with a minute rest in between. By the end my legs were jelly, my heart rate was up around 180, and I was light headed. But the neck was only marginally sore. The second was a 1 hour road ride, and the weather was truly foul – a proper cold and wet Cape Sunday morning. The few of us who turned up gathered around all hoping the others would give up and either get back in their cars or go immediately for coffee. None of us did though, and so our small band of DC team riders headed out., wheels splashing through puddles and spraying up road grit all over our feet, drive chains, and each other.

Despite the miserable weather, I was sad to turn for home early at Stellenbosch. It was fun to be riding again, even more so because Darren who I hadn’t ridden with sicne last year’s DC had made the trip out from Cape Town to join us, and Penny’s husband Jean had also come along, who I’d never ridden with. I’d preferred to have carried on with them against the physio’s instructions, but knew it didn’t make sense to pay for advice and then ignore it. I cheered myself up by ripping the road up all the way home. I might have been limited to just an hour’s riding, but nothing had been said about how much effort I was allowed to put in. I put maximum effort into every hill, and didn’t hold back on the descents. As a result I got back to the car out of breath and sweating, but more importantly I was smiling – there was very little discomfort in my neck. My hands and feet though were still suffering a bit from numbness at the tips, and the cold was not helping with this one bit. I had to remind myself that as this was Spring Day, the weather must surely warm up soon.

It did, on Wednesday for the normal weekday club ride. And after the excellent progress on my two test rides I was given a clean bill of health and cleared to build up to normal training again. Even with that, leaping immediately into a full 100km ride seemed foolish so I limited myself to 50km, and John and Theunis turned back with me. The three of us pushed a decent pace though, keeping the Garmin in the 28 to 30km/h region for long stretches on the way back, alternating turns pulling at the front along the long slog from Gordon’s Bay. John led us to an excellent coffee venue too, Snobs Roastery near the Somerset West Mall – perfect spot to end a good mornings ride.

There was one other thing gone from the DC training a few weeks earlier too – no sore knees. I’d had a hunch my saddle wasn’t right, even though I’d put it back on at the same height as the tape marking it. A couple of things had made me wonder if it was fractionally off straight, even though it looked right – it didn’t “feel” quite right, and I was struggling to balance with no hands on the bars. When Darren also threw this out as a possible cause on the Sunday ride I did a thorough check. It was so close, it was really hard to see, but it did look a millimeter or two out after checking from several angles. Sure enough, on the Wednesday ride, I was sitting balanced and comfortable again, and sitting up with hands off the bars was no issue at all. It’s amazing such a small misalignment could have such a significant effect.

A couple of days on, and perhaps helped by the slow warming of the weather, the fingers and toes are also beginning to feel more normal too. Most importantly though, I’m getting that itching sensation when I spend too long off the bike – the road is out there waiting.