So, the post at hand: the Kungsbacka Gran Fondo... This was a 137 km (though my Garmin ended up saying 137.7) bike race that Thony, I, and about 200 other people participated in around the hellaciously hilly Halland* County on Sweden's not-always-so-sunny south-west coast last weekend on what would prove to be the windiest day in the history of Scandinavia. Before I get into the details of race day itself, let me begin with a word of caution: based on my learned experience, accumulated up to this point in my now thirty-four years of life on this here planet, and particularly with respect to learnings I acquired some time in the last several days, I would warn off anyone, anywhere, from participating in a 137 km bike race when any or all of the following conditions are or may be met: (1) the wind levels surpass the "gale force" classification sustained over an entire day; (2) the furthest you've cycled in a single session in the previous three years or so accounts for about half of the distance you are to complete in the race; (3) you're a bit of a wimp. Unfortunately for the author of this blog, all three of the above points were met during the aforementioned race. Thus, it was a difficult day full of pain, horror, and humiliation. That begin said, however, it was also a lot of fun, I didn't DNF (i.e. I finished the race within the cut-off time), and I wasn't even in last place.
Sunday morning started around 7:00 when the 50+ km/h howling winds and ~7 degree temperature greeted our timid steps as we emerged from Thony's cottage-like mansion (CLM) overlooking the shores of Sweden's beautiful west coast to load up the Korean station wagon. We drove to Kungsbacka, prepped the bikes by performing various tasks including ensuring that the tires held a solid twelve bars of pressure per, did a short warm-up ride, and lined ourselves up right in the thick of the starting pack. As a small aside, for those wondering what bike I made use of for this epic journey, that would be Thony's previous road bike -- a "Merida" -- seen behind his current professional Cervelo S5. The fact that the latter bike costs (literally) five times as much as the former could be a factor that one might use if you were looking for performance excuses in a race. I won't do that here, however, as this was a pure case of being woefully out-of-shape and ass-kicked by the distance, the terrain (more than 1,300 m of climbing), and mother nature's evil, evil conditions that included cold, rain, and surpassing all else, the wind (did I mention the wind?).
At 9 AM sharp, the gun finally went off (ed: was there a gun? It may have just been a "GO!") and the group of 200+ cyclists were off. Our protagonist joined himself on to a sizeable peloton and launched into some early hard climbs that saw his HR jump to >100% of its theoretical maximum. Still, he clung on to the back wheel of whoever's bike he could and when he was dropped from that particular group approximately 15 km into the 137, he realized (he = I here of course, but I'm just using a different narrative technique) that his RPE (rating of perceived exertion) was more in line with a 20-minute race rather than one that should consume between 4 and 6 hours.
For the next about 1 hour / 30 kilometres I was on my own. I pedalled up and down towering ascents, through forests, and along winding roads looking down on Swedish lakes and bays and estuaries of the North Sea. Finally, a single cyclist caught up to me and we "worked together" (i.e. he would be at the front and I would cling on as best as I could in the draft zone for 15 minutes or so followed by me being at the front for a couple minutes tops) until the end of the first loop which was around the 58 km point and which I arrived at after 2 hours, 10 minutes. At this point, I got off my bike and ate a bunch of food at the rest stop. I ate and I ate and I drank some water and then I drank some more. Then I went pee and then I ate another nutrition bar. Then I drank some sports drink and then I looked around and figured I had better get going again, just after one more snack. My pit stop was arguably a little bit long and I was again by myself. I trucked along the wind-swept roads where the winds were so strong that I could be pushing let's say approximately 300 W along a flat and be going 15 km/h max. Just when I decided that maybe I should crumple up into a little ball, put down my bike, and quit this silly race, a group of approximately 8-10 riders caught up to me.
Before these particular riders had reached me I had been harbouring an irrational fear that I was the last / only one left on the course. Irrational, of course, because when I left the rest area there were several riders still drinking coffee and many more still making their way into the pit stop. But the fears felt real enough and the arrival of a group of cyclists was a pleasant surprise that helped keep my spirits from shattering completely. I joined on with these guys and their approach to the race turned out to be highly amenable to my own. Within a few km's, following a particularly loathsome climb, everyone pulled over to the side of the road for a snack break! I naturally pulled over as well and broke out a Xenofit Carbohydrate Bar and joined in the snacking festivities. Not speaking (of course), somehow (maybe because I'm not blonde? [ed: but you were wearing a helmet!]) a friend of Thony's figured out that I was the odd man out and -- out of 200+ people in the race where one of them happened to know Thony and know that I was in the race -- he said "hey! are you Thony's friend?". This was the beginning of my long partnership with Thony's friend Ville and his team.
Ville, his buddies, and I, would more or less stay together for the rest of the race. There is a particular ~5 km section near the end of both loops 1 and 2 where you charge head-first directly into the wind for a bit, only to then make a sharp right on to a fully open road with large farm fields on either side. During this latter sub-section, the wind has nothing standing in its way that might work to diminish its power, and you have to lean to your left as if you were making a hard left turn simply to stay more-or-less upright on the bike. The wind was that strong. We had been working together as a team up to this point, but riders were crumbling. This wind-swept leg in particular unloaded a "hurt locker" (as they say) upon the course (or something like that) and when we rolled into the pit stop area for the second time, it seemed like a lot of us had simply had enough. At this point, we weren't the last-place group. As I repeated the ritual of eating, drinking, eating, and drinking some more, more groups arrived into the rest zone along with a charity team comprised of about 25 people all decked out with matching yellow Bianchi bicycles. These teams didn't stick around this time, however. Some stopped very briefly, whereas others simply cruised through the nutrition hut (that was being disassembled at this point anyways). Finally, just as we were about to head off for the final thirty kilometres, Ville told me "they said we can't do the last loop". I said "what???", he spoke to some people in Swedish a bit more, and then he said "ok we're gonna do it anyways." And we were off...
The group had been vastly diminished in size and power, however. Whereas previously we were many, we were now just four: me, Ville, and two other guys with names probably somewhere along the lines of "Mats" or "Linus" or "Hjalmar" or "Melker". The problem was that none of us had any energy left. And somehow it was left to me to be the saviour of the misfits. Think of most Hollywood movies that have ever been made: you know, where there are a bunch of losers and then one of the losers somehow accomplishes a heroic feat to turn the losers into victorious winning warriors? Well, it wasn't like that at all, but we were going to finish the race and it turned out that I was going to be the one who was going to get us there. And so I took the lead. I pulled and I pulled and led our small team with the foreign captain up mountain(-ish) passes, alongside Swedish farms, and even through a short thunder storm. Finally, with only three or four kilometres to go, I pulled off to the side as I felt spent. I made the signal that it was someone else's turn up front, and moved to the back of the pace line. Unfortunately, no one had gained any energy and our speed diminished from a sprightly 20-some km/h down to a geriatric number in the, let's say, "high teens". We were so close anyways and so after half a minute I raced back up to the front of the line and waited for everyone to catch up so I could be a hero and pull us to victory (victory of a sort). I slowed down and I slowed down some more, but my Swedish comrades were still having problems. Ville saw his moment of defeat and in valiant selfless tradition told me (essentially) to save myself: go on! Leave us! In the aforementioned Hollywood movie I would have ignored that advice, but since it was real life and I just wanted this thing to be over, I looked to a deep dark place within myself (they say this in Ironman movies... I don't really know what it means but I hope it's metaphorical) and found some power. I raced ahead up one final climb and even passed a couple of lone cyclists who had lost their own groups.
Finally, I arrived at the half-dismantled finish line. Some volunteers that hadn't yet gone home delivered a round of applause and a girl that seemed relieved to be able to get rid of another of the last-remaining finisher medals handed it to me and said something in Swedish; probably "Congratulations" or "Call me later" -- they sound similar in Swedish. In the end the race would take me 6 hours and 11 seconds for an average speed of 22.82 km/h. That of course includes the multiple breaks and so if you consider my "average moving speed" (which is a great invention made I think by Garmin) it climbs all the way to about 25 km/h which is still pretty bad but not as bad. I guess it would have been nice to get under six hours and I easily could have found those 11 seconds at a number of places throughout the race, but when you're up in the six hour range for a race that should really have taken you maybe even up to an hour less, getting just under the rounding-off hour doesn't have the same importance I would venture to say.
So that's it. The take-aways: about ten people finished after me and another twenty or so didn't complete it at all. Let's not discuss the hundreds that were ahead of me because in life you're supposed to concentrate on the victories, no matter how small or how insignificant or how you choose to frame them. Thony, on the other hand, did really well. He has to since he's got an Ironman in a few weeks. He finished 36th with a time of 4h12m26s. Something for me to work towards!
And with that, back to the conference. Quick Florence update: 30 degrees and sunny when I arrived, but has devolved into more Munich-like weather with rain and 18 or so. Sandi is here too (arrived on the train) and we will participate in the "Color Run" on Saturday with our friend Clara: a 5 km run in the city centre where one runs through clouds of paint and you end up colourful, I guess, at the end. Probably not the greatest thing for our unborn child, but I'm hoping the paint clouds are non-toxic.
* that's Alliteration.
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