I Survived La Marmotte!

The sun came over the mountains about half way up the Glandon and suddenly it went from fairly chilly to quite warm in the sun.  I continued on and made it to the top of the Glandon after only 1h 52 minutes – my fastest ever time – mainly due to the speed along the 10km of flat road prior to the climb.  As I got to the top of the Col du Glandon, I crossed the timing mat and the timers stopped (or so I thought at the time!)  The organisers had decided to stop the timers for the descent of the Glandon due to problems with crashes – the idea being that it would encourage people to take it easy on the downhill.  Because of this I took my time to take a good rest, fill up both my bottles and eat some of the food on offer.  After around 10 minutes I set off downhill – although the sun was out it was pretty chilly up there – I was very glad of the gilet I’d squeezed into my back pocket along with all the tubes of gel and packets of drink powder.

The descent was well marshaled – guys with flags on the tricky corners but it wasn’t long before I came to an area with cones and someone on the side of the road beside an ambulance.  I guess that having 7000 cyclists go down a steep technical descent is always going to result in accidents, however you do it.  As I continued on, I saw another 5 crashes (only one with another ambulance) – I dread to think what it would have been like if they hadn’t neutralised the descent!  As the road went through the ski resort of St Columban, riders began to come by fast – I didn’t know at the time, but only the first, steepest and narrowest half of the Glandon descent was neutralised – and it started after the food stop (so I’d been lounging around for 10 minutes at the top wasting time!).  I could have gone much faster down that second half of the descent, but with hindsight was glad I didn’t, as the road was still quite busy with cyclists at that point, and there was occasional traffic coming back up in the other direction.

Going along the Maurienne valley

Once I was down the Glandon, the next part of the course was a relatively flat section along the valley (although there were still a few ups and downs).  After being in a relatively slow group and doing a few turns on the front a much faster group passed by.  I took the opportunity to jump on and after around 10 minutes of a pace a little too fast for me we caught up to the back of a larger bunch – we must have been around 100 cyclists!  Luckily the speed had backed off a little (the fast guys carried on) and gave me a breather before we got to the foot of climb number 2 of the day – the Col du Telegraphe.   At this point my legs were not feeling so good – I think that I’d been pacing myself reasonably on the climbs, but had been going too hard on the flats!  My logic was that it was worth it as you can get a draft on the flats but not the mountains, but I don’t think I accounted for how much the additional effort would take out of me (I usually take it easy on the flats these days!)  So when the road went uphill for the first part of the Telegraphe, I again concentrated on going at a comfortable pace.  The day was warming up now and it was hot work in the sun – but far preferable to the rain that I’d had the previous weekend for the Vaujany sportive!

After a struggle, I was at the top of the Telegraphe, and descending down towards Valloire.  I didn’t stop at the drinks point at the top of the Telegraphe, and was getting a little worried that I’d missed my planned stop when I’d passed through Valloire and not found anything.  However a few kilometers later on the flat section after Valloire I saw the welcome sight of the food tent and stopped for my next feed.  Once I’d stuffed a few dried apricots,  banana, and a dodgy looking ham sandwich down I was on my way.  No lounging around for 10 minutes this time! Luckily I was feeling better by this point and as the road kicked up for the climb of the Galibier proper, I noticed that I was passing

more cyclists than were passing me.  This made me feel better about my pacing plan and I continued on up the long climb.  Further up, despite the sun it was getting decidedly chilly – once you get up to where there are still decent sized patches of snow, the air temperature seemed to drop rapidly.  The last steep section up to the summit was getting to be a struggle – my earlier ‘good’ feeling wa pretty much gone and I arrived at the summit looking forward to the long descent back down to Bourg D’Oisans.I only stayed at the top of the Galibier long enough to get my arm warmers and gilet on as it was pretty cold.  Once I’d got going on the descent it was even colder – not quite shivering cold but not good for the legs.  A guy passed me on a flatter section so I jumped on and we went down together.  As I know this descent well I left him behind on the sections with corners but he was going faster on the straight sections and caught me up each time (I dont go that quick downhill being a lightweight 63 kg!).  Eventually we came to quite a twisty section just before entering the last tunnel before La Grave and I lost him for a while.  I carried on on my own for 5 minutes when I suddenly saw a bunch of guys rocket past on a flatter section.  I jumped on the pedals to get on the back and instantly had some serious cramps in my right leg.  I just about managed to hold them off – they didn’t quite get to that ‘locked out stage’ so I managed to keep going, albeit at a gentle pace.  At this point I was little worried that the ride up Alpe D’Huez was going to be really difficult if I was cramping, but they never came back.  I think it was a case that my legs had cooled down with the lack of hard pedalling on the descent and my sudden attempted acceleration shocked them into cramp.  After more descending I caught up with a couple of fast looking dutch guys – just the ticket for the flat 5km to the base of Alpe D’Huez.  I stopped at the last feed station and filled my bottle for the last time, and then jumped straight back on the bike as I was feeling good again.  I managed to push my heart rate up to 160 – 165 and was making good progress up the Alpe.

It only lasted for about 2 of the 21 bends of Alpe D’Huez though – I suddenly felt really bad – nausea, and feeling cold of all things (not what you’d expect going up an 11% incline when my Garmin said it was 33 degrees – that in was the sun but it must have been at least 28 deg. C).  I really backed off and dropped my heart rate back down to 145 and things got a little better but I was still really suffering.  Having said that, I was still passing more people than were going past me – I think the heat and distance was getting to everyone.  I took on some water at the half way point and felt better, but again it was only short lived and I was soon back to that zoned out ‘just keep pedalling’ mindset, trying to ignore everything that hurt or ached.  I took another 1 hour 13 minutes to get up the Alpe (my best time is just under 55 minutes so you can see I wasn’t at my best!), but with a steady pace I was still overtaking quite a few people.  I didn’t feel it at the time (I was too busy suffering) but afterwards I was pleased I saved a little energy earlier on to tackle Alpe D’Huez, which was harder than I ever expected.  Perhaps living at the foot of the Alpe had made me under-estimate it a little, but after 6 1/2 hours of hard riding getting up there was one of the toughest things I’ve ever done.