live-cycle

Paul has pretty much summed up our final day of the Cape Epic, and the pure relief that we felt in finishing it. A full day after it has all ended, I find it hard to recall the pain, the agony, the memory of each turn of the crank that seemed to engrave itself on the memory as it happened.
Three days ago, when I was at my lowest, I never thought of giving up, as bad as I felt. I felt absolutely awful, totally shattered, but I knew that as long as I could turn the cranks one more time, push the bike one more step, that I would keep on. There was never one individual thing that would make me stop – the pain in my butt was excruciating, but not unbearable, the fatigue was intense, but I wasn’t falling down, the straps that seemed to bind my legs were ever-tightening, but never so severe that it brought me to a standstill.
And that is what kept me going. If I was to stop, what would I blame? Collectively, I felt totally buggered, but if you broke the pain, the fatigue, the stress down into its individual elements, nothing was beyond endurance. And then, there was Paul. I just didn’t want to let him down. Before the race he had expressed his doubts about how he would perform, and he said that he hoped he would never let me down. He never did let me down. Most of all, he never let me down when I might have let myself down. He was such a great support all the way, and I have to thank him for that.
And so we came to the last day. Paul was keen to get going early and pick up places. After my terrible time two days earlier, I was still keen to hold something in reserve. But Paul was on a mission, and something possessed me to follow him.
The first long climb of the day was a drag, but somehow I stayed on the bike, resisting the overwhelming desire to get off and push. I knew we had had a good start, and I just hung in there, following Paul’s wheel, trying to keep him as close as possible. But as the stage wore on and the distance remaining diminished, I became stronger and the light at the end of the tunnel became brighter. Every time we reached a climb I became more determined to surprise Paul by being right behind him every time he turned around.
To tell the truth, I was waiting for the compulsory portage over the Gamtoe Pass, and was relieved when it arrived. In truth, we could never have ridden it, but we had time to enjoy the history and significance of the place. Once over the top we went down to the railway line. This stretch had me very worried, because the stones on the track were sharp and my back tyre was threatening to puncture – I could here the popping and hissing of the previous day’s flat, but somehow it survived. Soon after that we went into the neutral zone – well, there was nothing neutral because we were on our own, so we just tried to chase down the next pair. Once out of there, into the final five kilometres, we were riding as if the devil was at our heels. We passed riders who were unable to pick us up and chase. If there had been one small uphill, I would have died. But there wasn’t, and we survived, into that final lap where, for the last time, the Times Boardman Bikehut (Polaris SIS Virgin Atlantic) were welcomed home. The relief was just incredible. Paul and I hugged as we came to a halt, and I couldn’t take off my shades for fear that there might be tears streaking down through the dust on my face.
And I said, never again, as I had been saying for the previous three days. I rang Pam from the finishing line, but she could hardly hear me for the noise. We enjoyed the picnic, had a good steak and chips and several beers with some of the boys when we got to our hotel at Gordons Bay, and suddenly, it was all over.

Then this evening I was chatting to Pam. Somehow, somewhere in the conversation, I said that, yes, the Epic was hard, much harder than in 2005, but really, if I had the time to put more training in, I could have enjoyed it more, and maybe …
Well, before I get divorced for even thinking that, someone kick me, or take away my bike … I can’t be all that stupid, can I?

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Dennis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.