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Chris Matthews's Journal
Day 5: Check!
posted by RoubaixRider at 10:01 PM on August 14, 2008
An easy day today: just 89km, and only about 2500 meters of climbing. But that isn't to say it was actually easy. I just felt better than yesterday. A solid night's sleep, food, and my daily regimin of vitamins, protein powder, and everything else that is barely worthy of the title "food". My muscle cream, my chamois cream, my Advil, my compression tights. I have no idea which of any of these things individually helps me, but together, it all adds up to a cocktail that seems to get me out of bed and ready for another 8am start.
We woke up today in a giant field, literally surrounded by mountains and near exactly nothing. No cell reception, no electrical hookups, certainly no internet. But one damn impressive sunrise, cracking over the rock just as we left the start gate. Today I felt a lot better than yesterday, and rode off with Cush and the lead group where we held a great pace for the first 20km or so. The first feed station posed a bit of a puzzle: too many people hit it together, and everyone got all balled up trying to check through with the marshals there. I mistakenly assumed Cush was ahead of me, as he had been a minute earlier. Turns out, he stopped just before the checkpoint, and I somehow passed him. I broke the rule and left the checkpoint without him, sure that he was blazing off ahead. Instead, he waited for everyone to go through, then realized I'd gone through, and he chased like hell to get me back. He caught me about 30 seconds after I'd reached the second checkpoint, about 45km later. My bad.
Reconnected, we worked together for the rest of the day, including another brutal hike-a-bike section that scaled about 300 meters. This time, the race was actually supposed to go this way. We crossed the line at about 5 and a half hours, and I felt way better about today in general (except for my rookie mistake of getting us separated, of course). One particular highlight was the fabled rock garden, to which I say: "I'm five days into a mountain bike stage race, why do my arms hurt more than my legs?" Some seriously endless flow of rocky ribbon, perhaps better described as trails of boulders the size of basketballs, but with sharper edges and a decided lack of bouncy. After about 10km of solid, non-stop, arm-shattering, gravity-fed trail, it was a bit of a relief to see the fire road that led to the finish. But while it lasted, it was immeasurably fun, and despite the immenent and continual threat of all manner of bad endings, this trail left me very, very happy.
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