My 2013 marathon season was supposed to be great – the http://marathonm.wpengine.com/2013/04/08/reviewing-the-2013-absa-cape-epic/ followed by the http://marathonm.wpengine.com/2011/06/18/the-absa-cape-epic-vs-the-craft-bike-transalp-powered-by-nissan/ plus a whole lot of European marathon races, with no doubt some UK road racing thrown in for good measure. As it was, that all came grinding to a halt in the final kilometer of the Epic, with a broken hip, thanks to an unplanned bar-end / vine-retaining-wire interface.
Bionic
I’m now a bionic bike rider, with a chunk of the National Health Service’s finest stainless steel in my left femur (where’s the Ti, I hear you ask?). Five months in and walking is less comfortable than riding bikes, so riding bikes it is.
So it was with a great deal of pleasure that I restarted the 2013 season last weekend, on the first of September, just when most people are starting to feel pretty knackered, and ready for the off-season. A riding weekend with my Swiss-based French buddy Lionel was planned, but thanks to some proactive keenness on Lio’s part, this turned into an outing at the Garmin Bike Marathon in Moutier.
Perfect race prep – out on Lac Leman by Geneva
A relatively small field, but a decent course – three loops out of the town and back for 90k and 3,300m of climbing. The cruelty of this was in riding an all-too-familiar steep, gravelly climb out of town for the second time, on the third loop, just when the legs were really starting to complain.
The challenge was always going to be keeping a cool head and not pushing too hard on the first big ride back. I’m not sure how the doctors would feel about me doing a multi-hour Alpine mountain bike race, so I didn’t ask… but the circumstances demanded a certain amount of caution. So Lio and I took it fairly steady all the way round, and I managed to keep myself to just a few whoops of delight on the singletrack descents. Which are worthy of an honourable mention – surprisingly bosky, woody and sinuous, with plenty of damp roots to catch out the unwary.
Mission accomplished – safely back at the finish
Mission accomplished. First race done, five months and four days after being pinned back together; still a long way to go in terms of recovery and fitness, but a good milestone nonetheless.
A bigger race for my third of the season – the O-Tour near Lucerne this weekend. Stay tuned for reports.