Marmotte - Victory of matter over mind

The second of the big races during our vacation was the Marmotte - the big one. There are about 7000 people in the race and it is a pretty big deal. When I first signed up for it in November, my hope was to finish fast enough to get the gold award meaning that I had 8:49 to get through the 175km and 5000m of climbing. Last time I did it in 2005 I took 9:54 so I knew back then that this was a tall order. In order to achieve this, I needed to train a lot and lose quite a bit of weight. I had managed some training and lost a bit of weight, but not enough of either.

I knew from the weekend before that I was slower than 2005 and I was not confident of finishing and even less sure of enjoying myself.

The first climb of the Col du Glandon went slowly and I watched in envy as one guy rolled back down the valley with a broken chain. I wished I had such a good excuse and seriously considered heading home for breakfast with the rest of the family. I kept plodding on and once I had crossed, the col and begun the descent, there was no going back so I got on with the business in hand. The ride along the valley to the Col du Telegraph is a steady gentle climb on busy roads and not much fun. A thermometer at the side of the road read 34C and I was feeling the heat. At the foot of the climb I drank a litre or so of water and refilled my bottles - this was going to be a sweat... The Telegraph was long and hot, but to my amazement I was not making bad time. I decided that I would almost certainly not finish the race but stop in Bourg d'Oisans at the bottom of the last climb and call for a lift at that point. Admitting defeat at such an early stage had two affects, firstly it made me feel better about what was ahead and secondly it made me slower because I was no longer racing to complete anything. I stopped at each of the aid stations for longer than I needed to and generally took it easy. I went very slowly and ground my way up over the Telegraph, down through Valloire and onto the Galibier.

The Galibier is one of the highest passes in Europe at 2645m high and it is a long, hard slog to the top. There were claps of thunder coming from the clouds overhead as we climbed and it was starting to get colder as we climbed. I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of having left my vest and arm warmers at home but thankfully the rain kept away and after a couple of hours of grinding away, I finally got over the top of the climb. I had remembered the warm sweet tea that they had up there last time and was happy again to have a bottle full to warm me up and give a little sugar back.

The descent to Bourg d'oisans is about 50km so your legs get to recover a bit and your clothes dry out, but it is hard on the back, arms and nerves to go fat downhill for almost at hour. I was happy though because I was going to stop at the bottom. Wasn't I?

Of course not. now that I felt I didn't have to ride up Alpe d'Huez, I didn't really mind doing it. I stopped at the bottom for some water and a bite to eat and then set off up the 21 hairpins and horrid gradient hoping that I may still get in under 10 hours.

I crawled up the first couple of steep pitches and then stopped for a couple of energy gels and some more water. I had had trouble all day getting enough fluids and I had not really paid enough attention to my food intake. At this point I realised that I needed a good dose of calories and the gels helped a lot. I passed a lot of people during the second half of the climb once I concentrated on the job at hand and stopped feeling sorry for myself. I finally finished in 10:16, it was slower than last time, but not as bad as I feared. BHP did a fantastic job to beat me by around 20 minutes I think including the time he spent fixing a flat tyre. Amazing for a 66 year old!

Since then I have realised that there are 2 main reasons that I did badly. The first is obvious that I needed to lose 8-10 kg more than I did and crash dieting for 6 weeks before the race was not the way to do this. BHP dieted for 6 months to lose (more than) the little he needed to shed and I should have followed his example. The second problem was in my head. Having been slower in the Vuajany masters, I wasn't expecting to be fast or to enjoy this ride so I went about it with a feeling of pessimism. Instead of attacking the ride, I just got through it without trying hard enough. I have learned from previous experience (mostly in triathlon) that to achieve your best in these endurance events you have to push yourself the whole way through it and that takes concentration and determination. Without them you just finish, you don't really take part.

Don't tell MK, but I'm going to do this again one day and I'll do better after learning these lessons...