Monday 17 October 2011

Défi 2011: giving up less than halfway again...

0. Before the race.

Two days before the Défi I was cycling along René-Levesque, just in front of the CBC building when I was stopped by a policeman: he gave me a ticket for not stopping at a red light! You know that red light in front of the CBC headquarters? Nobody stops there! I was very angry for getting a ticket there, I couldn't believe it! Argh!

As you can imagine, this was my first ticket in almost twenty years living here in Montreal. I can't say I didn't deserve it (like everybody else, I have gone through my fair share of red lights...), but to have something like this happening to me just two days before our great event was really annoying.

1. Phase 1.

When I got to the Verdun Auditorium, the inscription list had only fifteen names on it! This was the smallest turnout ever, excepting the first event back in 1996. My wife joked that next year it will be just Mr. Belisle and myself... :-)

I got my number (lucky 7!) and got ready with some help from my wife. At this time an anglophone woman came to talk to me briefly, she said she read all my reports. It was her first Défi and she was a bit hesitant to do it in those horrible weather conditions, but she signed up anyway.

A few minutes before 6 am I went to the starting line. It was cold and wet, a horrible day to be outside. And to think that the week before we had a nice Indian Summer with the sun out and everything. Grr...

M. Fortier did the traditional countdown right before six am and off we went into the darkness. As expected, I was soon by myself, most participants just took off, much faster than I could go. A few latecomers passed me in the first thirty minutes or so, but after that I was on my own all the way.

The asphalt was wet, slippery, full of leaves and branches, not a good thing to skate on. And the headwind was just unimaginable. I thought in previous Défis that we had had bad winds, but this year most certainly was the worst of them all. It was a titanic struggle to go forward.

Right before the end of phase 1 it started raining heavily. The situation, which was already bad beyond description, took a turn for the worst. Even though I had impermeable clothes and more than one layer of plastic on me, I quickly got soaked. I thought: “great way to spend the day”...

There was nobody anymore at the end of phase 1. That could only be a bad sign. I didn’t have a watch on me, but that fact told me that it was already past 8 am. With all my herculean effort to keep skating, I hadn’t noticed how slow I was going.

2. Phase 2.

I was counting on getting a refill for my water bottle at the end of phase 1, so at the beginning of phase 2 I was getting a bit desperate: my feet and thighs were already aching, I already had the first indications of cramps (which in other years would only appear around the 40 km mark), I was thoroughly soaked by the heavy rain and I had no water anymore.

I stopped at a Dépanneur, bought a water bottle there and continued for a few kilometers more. I had to stop a few times to adjust the “second skin” adhesives that I had on my ankles. Even with them on, my skates were making my feet ache, so that’s why I had to adjust those pads to put them on the areas that were suffering the most.

At around km 36, in front of the John Abbott college I decided that I had had enough and could no longer continue. The weather had cleared, conditions were improving, but the toil of the first thirty kilometers under heavy rain and bad pavement had taken its toll and I could no longer continue.

Other than that, it was almost 10 am already, I was going at 9 km/h. At this rate it would take me more than fourteen hours to complete the Défi. I could not do that to myself

I called home, but my daughter told me that my wife had just left home to go to Costco. My options were: one, to wait for her to come back and then come pick me up (something like a two hour wait); two, try to get a taxi (yeah, right! I would never find a taxi around that area); or three, continue on my own to get to civilization (Pierrefonds, at the end of phase 2).

I took a longer rest and then continued on my way. The skating was actually better at this point, the sun was out, even the wind was not so bad anymore. For a few seconds I toyed with the idea of going all the way, but I soon dropped that: my feet would not allow me ten more hours of effort.

It felt actually good to do the Senneville hill and the downhill right after it. Now that in my mind I had already given up, the skating was more enjoyable. I still had to stop a few more times to rest a little bit, but I eventually got to the end of phase 2. Needless to say, nobody was there anymore.

3. Giving up officially.

I went to the same gas station on Pierrefonds/St. Charles where I stopped last year, called my wife and asked her to come pick me up. My daughter called M. Fortier to advise him that I had given up.

4. For next year.

Well, after quitting two years in a row before the halfway mark, I definitely have to do something different for next year. For sure I’ll get new skates, these old ones that I have are good for my ten km run to work every day, but they are not fit for the Défi. I will also consider acquiring a CamelBak to be more independent in terms of food and water. And I’ll do some training in the rain (I usually avoid training when it rains, but it doesn’t help to be fully prepared to do a dry Défi and then have to face wet conditions).

Till next year, hoping for a milder weather on Défi day!