A washing line: TransAlp style ©Mike Blewitt
The general thought is you should back off the training before a big marathon. I tried training through a marathon once, but realizing I was already 30 minutes down on Alban Lakata by the top of the second climb made me rethink that option. Not doing a whole lot on the day before the day before your marathon has almost become a rule amongst those I know. It’s a day of reading your novel, wearing tracksuit pants, and eating enough, but not too much.
When you’re traveling from race to race, it is also a good time to have a wash day. No, I don’t reserve my whole personal hygiene regime for one day. But you can accumulate a good pile of smelly kit and regular clothes within a week – or within a few days given light packing or adverse conditions.
So that leaves you to find a laundry. That is no mean feat in some towns. Ischgl? Not likely. Klosters? No, best get yourself to Davos. Scuol? I hope you have good investment to draw on. Anywhere in Poland? A Polish (wo)man washes at home! And so begins to oft typical process of washing your kit in a sink, and hanging it on a fence in full public view. And then there’s the bike.
I have lost count of the times locals have ushered their young children away as a marathon rider busily scrubs and polishes their bike in what few clothes
Spotless. Nothing some Alpine dirt can't fix.
they could do without washing. Everyone knows you don’t wash jeans except in times of extreme duress. This leaves a badly tan-lined cyclist decked-out in some ill-fitting euro Capri-ed jeans wearing little else except some sunglasses, scrubbing their bike in a remote carpark to the eclectic soundtrack blaring from their hire car stereo. No wonder locals go elsewhere.
But this time looking over your bike can be a bonding experience of sorts. Once in the thick of your marathon season you know each scratch on the bike. Maybe you were too busy making things happen to recall how it occurred, but you’ve probably seen it before. Those small problems you noticed and rejected last week, that then almost ruined your day, will now fill your attention. All promises to yourself to ‘not do anything major’ seem to go out the window as you find yourself servicing swing arm bearings armed with nothing more than a multi-tool and a bottle of chain lube.
Somehow, though, it all comes together. You make sure you have the right tyres, or convince yourself that the ones you have will be perfect. Your brakes run drag free and stop with deft power. The gear levers offer crisp shifts. The quick release levers point at the right angle and you check any spares are taped securely in the right place.
Cue the next morning and once you’ve spun the legs and woken them up with some efforts you zip tie your number on and give the bike one more polish. Maybe you will even take a proud photo (see left). You know the course. You know your nutrition plan. And you know you have done what you can to be ready – and maybe startled some locals in the process.