Success!

Yes, amazing but I managed it! Through the finish in 9 hours 30 minutes and 24 seconds of riding. I was 5901st through the finish, but actually 5882nd on actual riding. Another 277 riders came through after I did and of the approx. 7500 who started, about 1300 must have dropped out.

Not plain sailing though! At the foot of the Col du Tourmalet I was actually timed out (marshall with yellow flags waved me off the road) by less time than I’d spent waiting around while they scooped people who’d crashed into ambulances. The next group asked if they could carry on and were allowed to so I did too, feeling pretty pissed off at this point, but thinking I might as well do the Tourmalet now I was here, plus I could just roll down the other side to where our van was. (You wanted a gutsy story Donna!) I was flying up the climb however, and passed the timing car half way up, realising I could still make the real elimination point at La Mongie (and there hadn’t been a control point to check my transponder at the bottom) and carried on, passing pretty much everyone – riding, resting or pushing their bikes. Got to La Mongie with 15 minutes to spare, having been about 15/20 minutes down, grabbed a banana and got to the top of the Tourmalet in two hours total from St Marie de Campan.

It’s worth saying that the weather was horrible, Saturday night was a huge thunderstorm, while waiting at the start it was drizzling with the odd heavy shower. So up top there were no views at all, and the descent off the Tourmalet was a bit scary – you couldn’t see much road in front! The flat to the second decisive elimination point was hard, the wind was right at me with predictable results (I slowed right down, everyone passed me) and my knee was hurting (was wondering at this stage whether to drop out and avoid really injuring myself) but I got through the elimination point with a few minutes in hand.

Luckily I seem to suit climbing (or all the training round here on the cols has worked) as I had no problem on Hautacam, a couple of stops (jacket off, eat a banana, have a wee) but no pushing, no resting and I got to the top with half an hour to spare.

Now, Gary and I lost each other with only 20km gone (poor effort on our behalves!) but this made the look on his face when I rolled in just 3 minutes (and 50 places) after him well worth it! And well done too to Chris, who was himself just a few minutes in front of Gary – we’d all got round within 6/7 riding time of each other. Well done too and thanks to all the marshalls and supporters, no fun to be stood out in the rain for most of the day.

So here’s a few pictures, and thanks for all your messages of support – if that’s what they were!

Lining up at the start – dark and drizzling

Taking on Holy Water – feed station carnage at Lourdes

At the top of the Col du Tourmalet

Climbing up to Hautacam

Tired but happy - check out the medal!

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~ by climb09 on July 7, 2008.