Through a bad patch

After I wrote my last post, I came back to the race HQ to find Simon and Kale still feverishly ticking of the laps. Kale needed to take back kilometres from Simon, so increased the pace to attempt to ‘un lap’ himself. As you might expect, our boy refused to allow the invisible chord to snap, but I felt that this tactic was not conducive for either of them, eventually Simon headed my advice and allowed Kale to go. By just decreasing his speed by 10 seconds a lap would enable Simon to conserve vital energy, but Kale would be burning more and more trying to catch his man again.

We have been going for almost 5 days now, during that time Simon has not slept that well (always concerned about mileage), when I stopped him for fuel later, he was clearly tired. He ate as we discussed tactics for the next stage, we decided to allow the opposition to gain back laps whilst Simon had a well-deserved and much needed rest. This gave Kale the opportunity to close within 50 laps whilst, Simon was sleeping on the doctors bed which is under an open gazebo by the pool. Inevitably Kale would have to sleep too, that time came at 0115.

But Simon was sound asleep so I chose not to wake him to let him know. He eventually woke at 0230, despite the 3 blankets I had covered him with, he was cold. More food and a hot drink required, I had to walk him to the loo as his muscles had stiffened up, it also was apparent that he was a bit delirious. He genuinely didn’t know where our tents were, so I took him to the kitchen for hot food and coffee, whilst we decided what to do.

This event is very emotional and tears are common place, not just from the pain but what the mind puts itself through to find coping strategies. Simon and I had an emotionally charged chat, it was good to release it, the longer we talked the better he felt and the more food he consumed the stronger he became. The upshot is he is back on the bike, in a good place, riding past me every few minutes and I check him.

We have a new plan; to get to 1300km’s and then sleep again, but if that’s not feasible we will stop at 9 o’clock regardless. It’s meant to be cooler tomorrow (today, it’s 3.30 in the morning), which will be a relief after the last few scorching days.

Simon is on his way to achieving his dream, being a ‘Decaman’.