Badlands - day two
Day 2: Gorafe Desert to Velefique. 16 hours 8 minutes. 148km. 3,420m.
Whether it was the lack of sleep or realisation the race I’d been planning for the last six months was on, the morning of day two delivered euphoric highs I didn’t get at any other point in the race and simply can’t explain. An uncontrolled flow of seratonin that seemed to go on forever, or at least until day break.
The sun was up and I rode into Gor. The village had really embraced the race. They open the local football club for showers and even cornered off the bull ring for camping. All too late for me but I definitely took advantage of the supermarket. Walking out with as much food as I could carry I was stopped by someone who took my portrait. Bit odd I thought. Hardly looking my best. The photographer was Colin. I later found out that everyone had met Colin. He was infamous. An MMA coach. Lucky I didn’t listen to him when he said the next bit would be over in a couple of hours for here lied the longest stretch of zero resupply that just so happened to climb to the highest point of the race, Cala Alto at 2,168m.
Approaching the top of the climb, four 2001 Space Odyssey style observatories came into view. One of the riders I had been consistently bumped into, Ronan a Frenchman living in Mallorca offered to take a photo of me (this was in fact my only photo that wasn’t a blurred selfie). The second he handed my phone back to me the observatory behind me came to life and opened up right in front of us. It really was like a science fiction film.
I later spoke to a rider who slept up there and a fox bit off his Camelback mouthpiece whilst he slep - potential game over for a ride that demanded volumes of liquid of up to 12 litres per day. I wonder if he made it through.
I found out that day that 40 riders had scratched due to heat stroke. The heat was a constant concern. Whilst it was relatively easy to control sun burn (uv layers and copious zinc sun block) increased body core temperature which leads to heat stroke was a hard one to mitigate. What you could control was liquid, salt and carb intake (and trust in the heat acclimatisation training you did the week prior to travelling). Not sure if it was luck but I was okay.
I needed to sleep that night and was increasingly concerned that the village of Velefique nestled down a descent so long I’d have sworn we must be beneath sea level would not have anywhere to sleep.
And it was here at what was my lowest of the ride that a fellow rider, negotiated me a bed for the night in an old couples house - it was simply a life saver. Shower, bag reshuffle and a bed - perfect! The local restaurant reluctantly served up non descript meat, chips and fried eggs to dreary riders. I felt guilty knowing I had a bed for the night. Less so when I heard Colins plan (one not to disclose). And better still, a real coffee on departure at 6am the following morning. I was ready for day three.