Prologue: a rough start
Well, that was not how I imagined the first day of Cape Epic would go.
Let me rewind to last night. About an hour afterdinner, I'm blaming a dish that was loaded with raw garlic, my stomach decided it wanted no part of this adventure. What followed was one of the worst nights in a long time. Stomach cramps, a mild fever, little good sleep sleep. At around 2am I was lying wide awake thinking: this is it. I'm not going to race tomorrow. Eight months of preparation and I'm going to be taken out by a handful of freaking garlic.
But morning came, and things were a bit better. Not great, but definitely better. Enough to get on the bike. Enough to line up at the start.
The first seven kilometres were brutal. Not because the course was particularly hard, it was a 20km prologue, nothing compared to what's coming, but because my body just wasn't there. Every pedal stroke felt like it cost twice the energy it should have. Jeroen was feeling fine and really had to hold back, which is not what you want on day one as a team.
Somewhere after that initial stretch, I found my rhythm. Not the best rhythm, but enough to keep moving. We crossed the line in 1:08:55. Solidly in the middle of the pack.
And that top 20 in Masters we'd talked about for eight months? Let's just say the reality check has arrived BIG time 😂. With the time that we can train, and the sorts of lifes we have, you can absolutely forget about that. These guys are fast! Like, properly fast. The gap to the front is so much bigger than we anticipated. But we're here, we finished, and we're in the race.
After a shower we got on the bus to Montagu, where the next 2 stages are based. It's hot - 37 degrees. But tomorrow will be slightly cooler, around 32. We have been seeded in batch G, which means we start at 07:40. The first two hours shouldn't be too bad at least.
There's a bit of a worry though. Jeroen is in the race hospital as I'm writing this. He was feeling a bit nautious, the staff seem to think that his stomach is giving him trouble now too — whether it's the same thing I had or the heat or something else, we don't know. The bus ride to Montagu was 2.5 hours and the bus' AC wasn't working well, so we were experiencing a bit of the frog in hot water. I also was super hot, but feel better now. Hopefully Jeroen will so soon too.
Tomorrow is Stage 1. Ninety kilometres, 2,200 metres of climbing. A proper day out. All I can hope for is that we're both upright and feeling better by morning.
More tomorrow. Hopefully with better news.
