7 days to go...

Well as the old cliche says; what can go wrong, will.  I was setting up nicely in my last week of training, I had moved it all to the weekdays so I could spend the weekends with Kathryn, what could really go wrong?  Leading up to this week, I had the last block of four days,Day 1:  Ride 6-8 Hrs, Day 2:  Hike 3 hrs, ride 3 hrs, Day 3:  hike 4-6 hrs, Day 4:  ride until I fall off my bike.  Cal (my coach) had me scale back the risk as we were getting close so any turned ankle, sprained hand, falling rock on head etc were of minimal occurrence.  This meant that all the nice climbing and mountaineering I was doing was now back to cycling and hiking.

Day 1 had a funny start.  I need 6-8 hrs on the bike and conveniently Kathryn is going back to London.  So I drop her at the Geneva airport and then head off to Thonon, which is the start of the Route des Grandes Alpes.  My vague plan is to ride as far as I can on this, then come back on the flats. Vague is a good word because all I really know is that it starts in Thonon.  "Its the Route des Grandes Alpes, how hard can it be to find?" I ask myself.  I find a nice parking spot in the Hospital and set off, its about 8 am.  My first choice is about 15 mins into the ride, Col de Feu or Col de Cou?  A quick check on my phone and Col de Feu seems like its a bit longer so I take it, trying to make my life as difficult as possible.  At the top this first pass, I find a great map, exactly what I needed, only to see that because of my choice I now have 4 more climbs where the other choice had one.

The area that I was in is called the Alpes de Leman and its stunning.  I wind through and finally descend the other side to a town called Cluses and the part of the Route that I know.  What's happened with my early start and nice ride through the trees is that I haven't noticed the temperature creep up to 30 C and I also haven't been drinking.  So I start the climb to the Col de la Colombiere with half a water bottle, thinking I should fill up.

Halfway up the Colombiere, draining the last of my water I think to myself; "I wonder what time it is?",  surprise, it's 12:30.  I'm out of water, seriously hot, and only halfway up a climb.  It's one that I rode with Kathryn on the weekend, so I can't exactly turn around.  She was having problems on it and I had to give her the mental push: "you can turn around if you want, but the top is right there..."  she pressed on.  Suffice to say, by the time I made it to the top, turned around and came back down, I was ready for lunch.  Lunch as in burger and fries.  The problem I was finding is that there was nothing on my road.  Its about 2:30 by the time I find some roadside bar what will serve me a baked ham and cheese sandwich with a plate of fries, two cokes, and two bottles of fizzy water.  The locals at this bar must have had something to talk about for a few days and I could probably go on for quite a while as well.  As I sat licking my plate to get the last of the salt, I was wondering two things; first what kind of lives my new friends led, and more importantly how long it was going to take me to get back to the car.

At this point, I certainly didn't have the energy to climb the roads I had coming over so I was searching for the easy way home.  I was stopped at another roadside map considering my options when some nice guy pulled up and asked me if I needed some help.  He quickly showed me the "easy" way home, the problem that I would find out is that it was the longest way back.  The temperature had now climbed to 33 C and I was feeling like crap, dehydrated and needing to get out of the sun.  I managed to navigate my way through the long way home, stopping for a coke, take a quick pull off a farmer's hay wagon for rest, then finally reaching the Col de Saxel.  The descent down into Thonon was supposed to be simple but it was long.  To cut it short, I found myself on fumes back at the car around 6:30 pm.  My easy little ride had turned into a 9 hr ordeal.  There's only two times that I will break down and eat at McDonalds, a severe hangover and a severe exhausting from a 9 hour ride.  Funny how a a meal laden with fat, salt, and calories will turn your life around but it works.

Hiking is a funny word for I've been doing.  First I'm back down in the valley floor here at 1000 m altitude, then I'm also carrying half the house in a back pack to get a better workout.  I have a standard route with minor variations straight out of the house here, up to Flegere, then further up to the top of the Index chairlift which is at about 2400 m.  My pack has 120 m of rope, 2 litres of water, some Figolous, a shell and a fresh t-shirt.  The first two are purely for weight so the pack comes in at about 15 kg.  Kathryn was going hiking with a couple of friends on the weekend and I tried to tell her she should take it as training for her triathlon, she believed me for second but I couldn't keep a straight face.  Start the watch and out the door, 2:20 minutes is my best time for the ascent.  People stare when I pass them because I'm basically running up hill, dripping with sweat.  The nice thing about this route is that you can go one way, there's a chairlift and cable car for the return which really saves a pounding on my knees.  A quick lunch break and I'm off on the mountain bike, great trails here in Cham and you can quickly string together any length of ride and never be too far.  Also nice to be in the shade after the sauna ride on Day 1.  Feeling lazy, I swing by the Italian deli and get some Cannelloni for dinner.  As I 'm lying in bed, I can feel something is just not right somewhere in my digestive track...

By Day 3, I'm starting to feel a bit of fatigue, or at least I think its fatigue.  I'm slow starting and don't get out the door until about 11 am for my long hike.  I was trying to get up to Le Buet, a nice hiking peak around here that it just over 3000 m.  The problem with this route is that the path is horrible, nice choice for a low risk route, sprained ankles must be common here, loose rock, water, all the ingredients.  Common sense gets the better of me and I turn around at about 3 hrs, the 2 hr return gives me enough time to meet the goal of the day.  I drop by one of the local restaurants for a quick meal.  By the time I'm back at home, the funny feeling I had the night before, combined with the bit of fatigue is threaten to become something else.  My belly is rumbling and I've made far too many trips to the bathroom.  Kathryn tells me to go to bed and sleep it off.  A couple hours later it all becomes obvious and my plans for the next three days take a bit of a U-turn.

Yes, one of those nights, either food poisoning or some kind of flu bug.  Certainly not 24 hr flu, because it lasted 72.   Three days either in bed or on the sofa, never more that 5 metres from a toilet.  I watched every movie in the house and was reduced to watching Letterman make fun of Paris Hilton on YouTube, which is a really funny interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liJbE71DK20  


I was pretty happy when Kathryn showed up after day one, being sick by yourself is not fun.   My diet was water and Mango Sorbet and she could sit in the car long enough to re-supply, one of the many thankless jobs that she was saddled with, thank you wifey I love you :)

So there you have it, with 7 days to go I seem to be on forced rest.  Nothing I can do about it but I am feeling better.

D