big mess

For lack of time and coherent thoughts but in order to keep a memory anyway, here an erratic summary of the last few days. From Zurich, my friend and I drove to Imst, 50km from Innsbruck, Austria. It's a little town that's not too attractive, but it's in the Alps, so it's beautiful no matter what. We stayed in a bed and breakfast and hiked and rode bikes every day. I took it easy on the bike, and that was fine with my buddy who hadn't been on a road bike in about two years. The climb to the Hahntennjoch, about 12km averaging 8% started right on our front door. Off the bike, we road the Alpine Coaster twice, 3.5km of roller coaster down the mountain, truly hilarious – and exhausting if you work the turns to go really fast.

The weather improved steadily from the afternoon in Zurich. It rained on and off but more rarely with every passing day. On Saturday, I was hopeful as I drove into the sun and across the Alps into Italy. My hope wasn't betrayed – the weekend ended up perfect, sunny, day and reasonably warm.

Since the debacle at the Challenge Dauphiné I've been dreading a cold Dolomites Marathon. So when we left our hotel at 5:15 to cruise down 5km into the village where the start was, I was mentally freezing already. It took me a while to figure out that it wasn't that cold after all. My hands worked almost normally. Once in Alta Badia, the size of this event became apparent. I had no idea how many 8500 cyclist are. Well, it took me about 25 minutes to cross the start line and I had to muscle my way through people for the first three climbs. After that, it became possible to go my own pace.

I enjoyed the crowd, I enjoyed looking up the climbs and discerning the road by the slowly bopping band of colorful helmets winding endlessly. You couldn't look around too much though because you had to watch everyone around you and in particular the bike in front of you. The margin of error was never more than five centimeters during the first two hours. The descents were wild also because there were so many people flying through narrow turns all at the same time but even more so because of vastly different capabilities. Some people didn't seem to move at all. Racing mountain bike I found out that I'm the worst downhiller in the world, but on Sunday, I literally passed several hundred people on the way down. I gained twenty places on the last descent to the finish line...

Overall, I benefited enormously from all the people because it kept me from starting to fast (though not from dying later) and it practically washed me up the early passes effortlessly. The first three climbs around the Sella group, Pordoi, Sella and Gardena (Campolongo doesn't really count) – fantastic! The Sella group is a spectacular sight with its sheer cliffs rising into the young morning sky.

I still felt great at the base of Giau, but there, on the most difficult climb of the day, I had to pay the price for not eating right. I ate too many gels too early, my stomach got all glued up by the goo, and when I needed it, I couldn't stuff anything into my throat. I slowed down to a standstill close to the top of Giao, I even stopped, trying to throw up to get my stomach ready to accept more nutrition. It was in vain. On the next climb, I could finally convince myself to eat half a banana, and things worked better after that, but by then I had probably lost twenty minutes. In the end, I finished with a good time but with legs that were not completely exhausted. Room for improvement if I was to do it again. Certainly not next year, though. London doesn't have the topology to train for this kind of event.

The drive home today showed me how lucky we all were this weekend. It rained, it poured, and sometimes it came down so hard I couldn't see ten meters. Snow was forecast for midweek on the mountains around Alta Badia. I don't have to worry about this. All I had to worry was to get myself home safely, which I did, but it was almost more of a workout than yesterday's ride. That's why this post is all mangled up. Sorry. Maybe more (and clearer) later, and maybe some pictures also. Good night.