War Stories

Training From The Coaches
21

War Story

I like this, here s my War Story:

One of the hardest sportive rides you can do is the Flèche Wallone, a 205km epic ride through the Ardennes. In 2016 a friend of mine invited me to ride it with him. Good idea ! Only one problem, he’s a skinny 65kg climber type of cat2 level and I m a 80kg cat4 at best ( and already exaggerating lol). So we thought about that and came up with a solution. He would drag me through the valley’s, I would sit in his wheel and “rest” up and through the various climbs we would ride side by side, motivating each other. ( Needless to point out who needed the motivating).

Since he is used to start late and overtaking everybody, we started late, which left me worried that we wouldn’t make it to the feed stations in time:” Don’t worry, plenty of time, it will not be crowded, so we can fill up quick and get moving fast”.

Much to my surprise our plan worked brilliantly, first climb straight out of the start, having someone ride next to me, was really motivating and I got some stellar climbing times ( well, for my level anyway). Through the valley’s we could really speed up, without a lot of cost, plan worked like a charm. We started to overtake people and kept overtaking, even on the climbs.

Getting to the feed stations worked as planned, fill up, eat fast, no hassle. The tougher climbs went by, and I don t think I every rode that fast through those valley’s.

It wasn’t until the second to last climb with still 30km to go I noticed I was running out of steam. By my own fault, I forgot to fill my bottles at the last stop and I wasn’t used to riding for more than 6 hrs already. That last climb was going to be though, and it was. I cramped up, had to get off my bike. My friend missed me at the top and came back:”You got this, top is around the corner”

I cannot tell you how I got back on my bike and got to the top of that last climb, everything hurt but the thought that I was about to finish a 205km ride through the Ardennes ( only a 10k descent to the finish) kept me going.

We were well on time for the traditional hamburger at the finish……

I learned something that day: Winners have a plan and keep your bottles filled up…

7hr29m42, 205KM and 514TSS. To date still my highest TSS ever.

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22

I had an event where two consecutive aid stations had run out of water. There was some cramping, to be sure!

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23

Great effort and thank you for sharing your story. That’s some insane TSS!!

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Shortly after I rode my first ever century, about 7 years ago, I was asked, along with several other men, to help a regional chaplain lead a class teaching inmates how to be better fathers, even while incarcerated.

To save money, the men decided to split hotel rooms. I was paired up with an old retired guy. As we got acquainted, I found out he was a cyclist. I mentioned that I had ridden a century that summer. I was really proud of myself, and “humble bragging”. I then asked him what he did that summer.

Oh, “I rode the Pacific Coast Trail”, he said. I had no clue, geography is not my strong suit. “So how far is that?”, I asked, thinking it was a short trail in Southern California. “From Seattle to San Diego”, he replied.

Whoa. Now I was impressed, but needed to know more,

ME: How far is that?

OG: About 1,500 miles

ME: How long did it take you?

OG: 30 days

ME: How many miles per day (apparently math isn’t a strong suit either)

OG: 50 miles per day.

Suitably impressed and embarrassingly humbled, I was sitting in the presence of a senior athlete who had done things I can only dream of. OG as used here is not Old Guy but Old Guard, or Old Gansta, OG is slang for someone worthy of respect.

Then he tells me he hates it when his wife comes with him. She doesn’t cycle and hates sleeping in tents. So they end up sleeping in hotels every night. And she drives on ahead to their next stop. But she gets bored so she goes shopping. “It’s so expensive”, he said!! I’m sure she would say the same thing about his hobby.

And I learned an important lesson: There’s always somebody going farther or faster than you!

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This is a great quote to remember in llfe itself and something I try and instill in my kids. It doesn’t mean you can’t try and catch them, but don’t act like you’re the only one.

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26

it was the best of times…it was the worst of times. Doing my second half iron-man… There was a chance of thunderstorms that day. Swim went horrible , I panicked but made it ( last swimmer out of he water). about 35-40 miles into the bike I came up to an intersection and noticed the clouds were about the darkest I’ve ever seen… a few minutes later all hell broke loose. The sideways rain hurt like I was riding a motorcycle in the rain. I was being stuck with a thousand needles all over my body, the wind was blowing debris ( branches, leaves, cows) everywhere and I couldn’t see s$%t. It eventually died down after what seemed like an eternity and the temperature dropped a good 15 degrees F. Turns out we rode through a microburst. Icing on the cake, about 5 miles later some d-bag throws a water bottle that bounced off my front wheel

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