The Marmotte

The Marmotte.

So how do I tell this story, with the nerves still raw as they are. It has only been 2 days since the torture that I, and many, many other were put through for hour upon hour up those mountains.

The thought of doing the Marmotte (for my sins), was always a good idea in theory. It was a long day in the saddle with a bucket load of climbing (5000m +)! The longer races go the more I tend to come into play, and with the climbing meterage being so high this also attracted me to the race. So while I was injured and unable to ride I had a look at the logistics and spoke with Sports Tours who I did my three weeks of the Haute Route with last year. They agreed to give me a great deal and support me during the ride, knowing a couple of the guys already I was happy to sign up with them once I was able to ride again.

So signed up and given a front pen race number all I had to do now was get in decent nick to ride it. This was the one little hitch as I was playing catch up. I spoke to Justin my Azur cycle Tours friend and he agreed to put me up for 12 days pre Marmotte so I could get some climbing into my legs. I had a brilliant time there, and able to start to introduce some intensity in my training. We had perfect weather every single day. Training went as well as it could. We also managed to go up to Valberg to ride a 135k sportive. This was good prep, it showed me I was in ok shape engine wise but struggled when the quality guys put surges of power on in the climbs.

Only a few days before the flight up to Geneva there was a heat wave over all of France, and back in the UK too. 34-36 degrees I hear. At the time I thought nothing really of it as we had 30-34 every day in Nice. We flew up to Geneva and a short drive South to the notorious Alpe d’Huez, when we drove up there the others in the mini bus were gulping about how steep it was and how long it went on for. I, on the other hand wasn’t too worried, I was almost looking forward to that point in the race when everyone else was running out of matches to burn and I “hopefully” would have some left...!

I had undertaken (for me) a complicated Carb loading regime. I had to ask the hotel to do me certain food. I didn’t have any of the meal Friday as a single bowl of rice was on the agenda. I then had a 03:30 alarm call ready for me on race day. This is where it all starts to get a little messy.

Race day.

The usual I was awake before my alarm, generally looking at my phone every couple of minutes from 3am till it finally got to 03:20 and I went down to start the coffee fest and a bowl (or two) of my beloved porridge. I had wanted to get up uber early to try to get all the calls of nature out of the way and make sure I was fully hydrated as the forecast was similar to the day before and up at 1900m in the ski resort it was well over 30 degrees. So much higher in the valleys below.

My Favourite meal of the day, or well favourite food, PORRIDGE.

Breakfast done, toilet duty done satisfactorily, bike check done, number on done, I then rolled down the alp with plenty of layers on and an extra bottle to sip. It was already warm and only 05:30! I met up with Rodney the Sports Tours rep who was there to take our descending kit off us and pump up tires. I did a few k of warm up riding and the legs were giving me decent wattage with very little effort, the heart rate was rising fast too so I must be full of fuel and glycogen. This was a good sign, I felt confident about the day to come.

I made my way to the start to find I was maybe the 3rd person there, soon a Haute Route friend Steve turned up. We casually chatted rubbish for a while then took turns to visit the toilets. This took up enough time to take us to start time. Boom.... we were off!! what seemed like 12-15k of slightly down hill and uber fast paced charging by a lot of people. As usual I didn’t care to much for this sharp elbow action and steadily slipped down the order. That was my first mistake, but at the time I didn’t want to crash before the first meter of climbing was done!

First climb, Col du Glandon. I was glad this had appeared and immediately got into a nice rhythm. Breathing good, heart rate up and power good too. A few of the early heroes were flying back down the field puffing and spitting so you had to keep and eye on who’s wheel you were following, or about to crash into! The Glandon has a couple of down hill section which was a bit of a concern but luckily I found myself in a group of 20 or so and we went down rather pedestrian to my approval. I did not know this but up ahead the big boys were distancing me by a few minutes.

Glandon nearing its end, I was looking out for Darrell who had kindly agreed to ride a few k’s to hand me an early bottle as the feed stops can be rather busy. This went as smoothly as ever and I started the neutralised descent. Once we hit the valley we exited a village and there was the timing mats again. We had a few k’s before the rather awesome looking Lacets de Montvernier. These will be on the tour and are a great spectacle to look at from the sky with a couple of hundred guys cruising up the tiny narrow road! It is all rather different from the bike, you cannot get these amazingly cool views of the road, you just get the steep pitches! I was still feeling alright here and did reasonable power up the climb. I was (I thought) keeping well on top of the hydration at this point. Over the top there was cups being handed out so I grabbed 2 on the roll and guzzled em.

We then descended a wee bit and popped out on the valley floor, the heat here was starting to feel proper hot now. We seemed to do a little roll down the valley and then back to make up the mileage then hit the start of the Col du Mollard, this is where my day started to change from a nice warm ride to a long long nightmare. I had bridged from a little lazy group to a bigger one with skinnier looking guys in while rolling down the valley so when we hit the climb people started attacking.

The stitch from HELL.

The Col du Mollard will be remembered for one thing, the stitch. I was immediately struggling to breath deep and get the oxygen in. I was in turn unable to produce power and getting dropped. This was the life I had for the entire climb. Legs were OK, but horrid pain in my guts. I knew I had to keep eating and drinking but the thought was terrible. A stroke of luck, we were being followed by the Mavic support and he was offering bottle fill ups.... I took the offer and drank water for the climb, if this helped I cannot be sure but after 90min the gut wrenching eased off, by the time this happened we were done with the Mollard and on Col de le Croix de Fer.

This is a nasty climb and pretty long too. a good deal of draggy gradient then (from what I can remember) 7-8k of steep stuff to the summit which takes you to the Glandon descent. I was already starting to play the mind games with myself, telling myself I just need to get to Darrell at the summit here for more water and fuel and I can then relax. I knew deep down the descent had some rises and I also knew there was a good drag to the start of the Alpe climb, AND then there was the Alpe climb itself. Strange how you talk yourself into these simple bit stupid promises to keep going. As soon as my gut started to feel better I made my way to the front of our group and before I knew it I was riding off the front on a 3% grade. Right time to push on, that little bit of positivity gave me something to get hold of and off I went, trying to put the pain down.

This was now working a treat, I was almost inspired for a few kilometers! Happy in the knowledge I had busted away from a good 10 other guys and was catching and overtaking a few more. It looked like the usual race profile was happening, we were in the end game zone, past 4 hrs and I was starting to get stronger!! Good times. I was running low on water, but knew Darrell would be there and I only had 4k to the summit. Luckily again there was another drinks stop and they were handing out cups of water, bonus! I could still see people ahead and I was generally catching them. I think I may have worked a little too hard picking people off but we were nearing the last few meters, there was Darrell waking as usual. I give him the salute as I very slowly laboured the pedals round towards him. We did another perfect hand over of 2 bottles and he even managed to pop a couple of gels in my pocket for good measure. I thanked him again and gave him the thumbs up, next up, the descent of the Glandon.

I had played that silly game with myself and sort of forgot about the little up bits on the descent. I had been practising my descending in the weeks in Nice with Justin and it had came to fruition down the Glandon. I was catching people for once, As Andrea taught me, there is no need to take risks, only to descend technically well. I was trying to do all he had taught me. Fortunately I took the descent well and I think made more time to my rivals close to me. Then I hit the nasty little so and so climb on the descent. It was steeper than I remembered and longer. Legs were really sticky and starting to ache with the knee a bit achey too. After what seemed like an age I started doing the down thing again. Phew...!

At the bottom I thanked my lucky stars I had not had any issues on the descents and ploughed on again through the false flat valley before the Alpe was to give me a dam good beating. The valley was noticeably warmer than anywhere else during the day, I love the heat and even I was thinking this was bloody hot! I could see the sweat appearing on my arms even while riding at 35kph. I was again down on water, constantly feeling thirsty. I knew the last bit of Sports Tours help was on “lacet” number 7. There was due a half bottle of water and maybe a gel if I wanted it. At this point I was cursing that fact I only said half a bottle, what an idiot...! I was hoping the guys had forgot and filled it right up.

Once the valley got going I picked up a couple of riders, but the road kept going and going. Depressingly it would never end, and so so hot! I wanted to drink but knew the quarter of a bottle I had left had to last me well over 7k of the Alpe d’Huez climb. What seemed like hours and we were in Bourg-d’Oisans. Turning left and over the roundabout, little straight and then it hits you like a truck. The first 3k is all super steep, I refused to look at my Garmin computer but I think its all over double figure gradients.

Alpe d’Huez Nightmare crawl.

So I was on the FINAL climb of the day. Everything I had behind me I had forgotten, all the mileage, all the gut problems, all the descents, all a thing of the past! All that mattered in my life at that point was the power I was doing and getting to that turn 7 for more water! I started positivity, the power was down from that on the first climb of the day but not by an unacceptable amount. Through 1.5k and I think the average was 280 watts, I told myself this was fine, this was my target for the whole climb. Keep tapping away, keep turning the pedals, keep making cycles, simple things. Next glance down at my Garmin and I was doing 250 watts... WHAT was this, I told myself off and got back on the 280 watts. A few seconds later I looked down and I was back down under 250... ARGHHHH! And so the battle had begun with numbers. I also had it on my mind what Turn I was on, I had seen number 20, so I had done 2, 2 of 14 to go till water. Shi*e...!

At this stage I was saying (possibly out loud), why is this not counting as a hairpin. I was begging the corners to be counting down but I am sure there was a kilometer between them and I was again struggling with the power. Sometimes I was seeing 220, this was dam Base power.... something I should be able to do for hours if not days, my legs were just hollow, they nothing in them. I would get out the saddle and would pick it up but that had new issues, epic pain in my feet and pro-dominantly in my toes. This was making me really grimace, after a dozen pedal revolutions the pain eased a little so I would continue with the dancing up the hill.

This continued for another couple of the official corners and I was really starting to just want it to end. I was not hurting hugely, but mentally I was on the edge. Physically I had nothing left, the heat and accumulation of mileage during the day was coming to a head. I was doing deals with myself, pathetic ones where I even considered a walk at the one third point on corner 14. As you know once I got there, there was no chance of me stopping. Not because I was strong but due to me knowing it would only slow down the process of me finishing and getting out of this hell hole I had put myself in. Water and stopping was essential.

I have never been one for pouring water over my head, never do I really get that hot but on one corner there was a few kids with a hose. As soon as I saw they had the hose and water was coming out of it I pointed at my head and said “head head” in my best french accent as I did not know the french for head!

Another few corners and I was starting to see figures under 200 watts... this was really getting bad. I had to stop seeing numbers for my sanity and changed the function on the Garmin. Soon after this I started to notice figures ahead of me. These were riders, and not just riders in the mini Marmotte, these were in the Big race, my competitors! Again, something to get hold of and fight against. Competitive instinct had cut in again just when I was starting to get in a downward spiral. Overtaking a few people I saw a figure I recognised. It was Nico, my fellow Haute Route Ambassador. I was trying to sneak up on my and say “Bonjour” with a really calm and easy look on my face. This plan was good until I changed gear and my good old Sram red decided to change with a huge bang, Nico looked round and knew it was me. “AH PAUL” he shouted, he seemed pretty happy. “Nico, how are you doing??” I replied, pleased to see him. This was a good minute or two as I had something to try to focus on, to try to distance Nico as soon as I could.

I was starting to spend longer and longer staring at the immediate 3 foot in front of me. Looking back I am surprised I didn’t just ride into the rock of barrier at some points as I don’t remember large sections of the climb. Then suddenly I was at “virage 7” Sport Tours drink! Amazing, and as expected they had done what I asked and given me half a bottle of water. DAM.... I gulped some and saved a bit. This last few k I don’t recall too much of it. Only once I entered the last 2-3k. I knew the final k roughly was flatter and was counting down till this last k marker. Then before I knew it it was over, I was through the finish line and done! Immediately I was looking out for the drinks, Powerbar stand had what I was after. Chinning half a dozen cup immediately and the guy filled my bottles up as well.

Finally finishing.

It was amazing to finish, to unclip and just drink cool liquids! I knew I had some recover gear all set up at the hotel so did what I didn’t want to do and clip back in, sit on the saddle again and ride up to the hotel. I had lined up baguette with honey and a protein shake. I got in and devoured these bits, took off my shoes and the pain in my feet kicked in, next up was the cramping.... on god, here we go again! I had epic cramps post London marathon in 2005 and these were similar. I now couldn’t lean forward or backward, if i did the cramps kicked in. 30 minutes later I had got out of my stinking kit and into the shower, another 20 minutes and I was out with a few bouts of cramp. I was continuing to drink at every available second between cramps and attempting to get dressed. Getting socks and trainers on was a real job but this was finally done with the help of walls and the bed. I started the stumble back to the main race village where the post race food was waiting for me!! :)

The day before, not quite knowing the misery to come...

So there you have it, a day of suffering which I paid to do, and many others as well! I found out during food that people were seeing 42 and 44 degrees at the start of the Alpe d’Huez climb. I also found out I was 29th overall so the suffering was worth it. now the dust has settled a bit I am able to look back at it without feeling scared.

Sorry this was a super long blog entry, those who are still awake, good of you to read. Anyone for the Marmotte next year!?!?!... ;-)