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rebeccmeisterSomehow, it makes the most sense to me to start with Loudeac, the second time around. I woke up there at around 8:30 am. I'm not sure if one of the volunteers came around to wake me up, or if I just startled myself, but at that point I was decidedly awake. Looking around the huge gymnasium, where light was now filtering in, I could see the hundreds of mattresses and cots that had recently been occupied by hundreds of randonneurs and the occasional randonneusse. Now, i only saw around five slumbering bodies.
Right then and there, I changed into the clean spandex that I'd packed away in my drop bag, and then stuffed my remaining clothing, the space blanket, and my camelback into the bag, keeping out only the plastic bag necklace that held my brevet card, wallet, and passport.
When I stood up to exit the gymnasium, my legs felt stiff and swollen, and the outside parts of my hands tingled with the numbness of handlebar palsy. Outside of the gymnasium, the people from Des Perez travel were busily packing up all of the remaining drop bags to begin the drive back to Paris.
When S and I had arrived at Loudeac the first, time, on our way towards Brest, we encountered RG in the cafeteria. He helpfully pointed out a good corner for sleeping and loaned us his air mattress. He also noted that bus and train schedules from Loudeac to Paris had been posted in the Control room (where we got our brevet cards stamped), but that it looked like it was a pain to take one's bicycle on the bus.
Knowing that, i approached the Des Perez travel folks to ask if they could transport my bike back to Paris for me.
"You know that they have extended the control opening times by an hour and a half, right?" one of them said, "You can still keep going."
I shook my head, on the verge of tears from the shock of it all, and explained that I could not ride any more because of the risk of damaging my knees. Somehow, amazingly, they agreed to take my bicycle for me, even though they said they'd turned away four or five other riders already.
With my bicycle taken care of, I turned to the next task, handing over my brevet card to signify that I was abandoning the ride. The people in the control office were busy with the task of shutting things down and taking things apart to pack them all up. At first, they thought i still wanted a stamp, but eventually I managed to convey that I was finished. At that point, a kind man helped to direct me to the train station.
Dressed in spandex and a stowable black raincoat, carrying just one water bottle and the baggie with my passport and wallet, I walked out of the Loudeac control and over to the train station, where I purchased a ticket back to Paris. There were still two hours until the next bus arrived (the bus took us to the train station), so I had time to grab a cafe au lait at the bus station cafe, and then had a seat next to a man from Australia who had to stop riding because he was unable to eat. We had a wonderful conversation about bicycling in Australia and his experiences with preparing for brevets, which continued through the bus ride up to our arrival at the train station.
By the time I had bought my train ticket, there were no reserved seats left on the train. That meant I had to find a seat at the end of one of the train cars, where people typically store their luggage. It was for the best, given the way that i smelled. I dozed on and off through the journey back to the Paris Montparnasse station. On my arrival there, i bumped into another randonneur who could not complete the ride due to ankle swelling. It was great to talk to him in particular because he declared himself a slower rider. I felt kinship for that reason, and because we both had to make the judgment call to stop instead of hurting ourselves further with long-term damage.
Backtracking from there: things really started to go sour for me at Brest. That was where i first noticed that my knees were bothering me, the right knee especially. When I went to the medical station to see about getting some anti-inflammatories, the interpreter informed me that they did not provide such a thing because there were no doctors present and besides, if the pain were masked I would hurt myself worse. I spent the segment between Brest and Carhaix messing around with my right pedal, trying to see if I could get my leg lined up in a comfortable-enough position to keep going. Failing that, I tried to compensate for my weaker right leg by doing most of the pedaling work with my left leg.
Those efforts, plus some words of encouragement from SA, another Arizona rider, helped me tremendously as we traversed that segment. I also thought back to the words of one of the control volunteers at Tintineac: I had told the volunteer that I was feeling tired, and he said, "Whenever you feel tired, just look out on the beautiful French landscape and think about how wonderful it is." He was so right: on the return trip from Brest, we could actually see the mountain that we'd had to traverse to reach Brest, and we could appreciate the sweeping vistas from the mountaintop.
My knee was still bothering me, however, by the time we rolled into Carhaix, so I made my way straight over to the medic area to see if perhaps this control could provide me with some ibuprofen. This time, there were in fact doctors available. Apparently they were still unable to dispense ibuprofen to be taken orally, but they had some ibuprofen gel that could be directly applied to the affected area. The relief felt tremendous. The doctor also wrote me a prescription for some ibuprofen which could be filled at any town's pharmacy; "I guess this is your souvenir from Carhaix," he told me with a sympathetic smile.
Night fell shortly after we left Carhaix, and at around the same time, the ibuprofen gel began to wear off. We made it back to San Nicolas, a food stop that had the most delicious food on the way out: giant, steaming bowls of cafe au lait, and crepes, glorious crepes. The food was just as delicious on the return ride. Fortified, we set off in the darkness again.
Somewhere in the stretch between Saint Nicolas and Loudeac, we wound up following riders who missed a turn, and got lost. At some point, riders ahead of us realized they were lost, and we started to check the cue sheet and scrap around for clues as to our whereabouts. Eventually, we came to a town where people were still awake. Amusingly, the people who were still awake were British, so i was able to step up and explain our predicament. The good and bad news was that we'd taken a 5-km detour. I was able to declare "5 kilometers" in French to the remaining riders, and got us turned back towards the route.
Unfortunately, the five bonus kilometers occurred in a hilly section of the route. I was having a hard enough time as it was, and the extra hills and lost time did not help one bit. In the meantime, as it got cooler and darker and damper, my shifters stopped functioning. Exhausted, in pain, frustrated with a bicycle that would not shift…that was a dark portion of the ride and I had to muster every ounce of my willpower to keep going. S stood by, quietly.
I knew I was done when we reached Loudeac. We arrived with even thirty minutes to spare before the closing of the control; SA had reminded me that if I could maintain just 10 miles per hour between controls, I could make it to the next control before it closed, too. But i was done for. S and I both got huge plates of food in the cafeteria, which we wolfed down, and then we got beds in the sleeping quarters. He asked for an hour and a quarter of sleep before being woken up, and I gave instructions not to wake me.
I woke up briefly when S got up, to kiss him goodbye and wish him well, and then i fell back to sleep.
Right then and there, I changed into the clean spandex that I'd packed away in my drop bag, and then stuffed my remaining clothing, the space blanket, and my camelback into the bag, keeping out only the plastic bag necklace that held my brevet card, wallet, and passport.
When I stood up to exit the gymnasium, my legs felt stiff and swollen, and the outside parts of my hands tingled with the numbness of handlebar palsy. Outside of the gymnasium, the people from Des Perez travel were busily packing up all of the remaining drop bags to begin the drive back to Paris.
When S and I had arrived at Loudeac the first, time, on our way towards Brest, we encountered RG in the cafeteria. He helpfully pointed out a good corner for sleeping and loaned us his air mattress. He also noted that bus and train schedules from Loudeac to Paris had been posted in the Control room (where we got our brevet cards stamped), but that it looked like it was a pain to take one's bicycle on the bus.
Knowing that, i approached the Des Perez travel folks to ask if they could transport my bike back to Paris for me.
"You know that they have extended the control opening times by an hour and a half, right?" one of them said, "You can still keep going."
I shook my head, on the verge of tears from the shock of it all, and explained that I could not ride any more because of the risk of damaging my knees. Somehow, amazingly, they agreed to take my bicycle for me, even though they said they'd turned away four or five other riders already.
With my bicycle taken care of, I turned to the next task, handing over my brevet card to signify that I was abandoning the ride. The people in the control office were busy with the task of shutting things down and taking things apart to pack them all up. At first, they thought i still wanted a stamp, but eventually I managed to convey that I was finished. At that point, a kind man helped to direct me to the train station.
Dressed in spandex and a stowable black raincoat, carrying just one water bottle and the baggie with my passport and wallet, I walked out of the Loudeac control and over to the train station, where I purchased a ticket back to Paris. There were still two hours until the next bus arrived (the bus took us to the train station), so I had time to grab a cafe au lait at the bus station cafe, and then had a seat next to a man from Australia who had to stop riding because he was unable to eat. We had a wonderful conversation about bicycling in Australia and his experiences with preparing for brevets, which continued through the bus ride up to our arrival at the train station.
By the time I had bought my train ticket, there were no reserved seats left on the train. That meant I had to find a seat at the end of one of the train cars, where people typically store their luggage. It was for the best, given the way that i smelled. I dozed on and off through the journey back to the Paris Montparnasse station. On my arrival there, i bumped into another randonneur who could not complete the ride due to ankle swelling. It was great to talk to him in particular because he declared himself a slower rider. I felt kinship for that reason, and because we both had to make the judgment call to stop instead of hurting ourselves further with long-term damage.
Backtracking from there: things really started to go sour for me at Brest. That was where i first noticed that my knees were bothering me, the right knee especially. When I went to the medical station to see about getting some anti-inflammatories, the interpreter informed me that they did not provide such a thing because there were no doctors present and besides, if the pain were masked I would hurt myself worse. I spent the segment between Brest and Carhaix messing around with my right pedal, trying to see if I could get my leg lined up in a comfortable-enough position to keep going. Failing that, I tried to compensate for my weaker right leg by doing most of the pedaling work with my left leg.
Those efforts, plus some words of encouragement from SA, another Arizona rider, helped me tremendously as we traversed that segment. I also thought back to the words of one of the control volunteers at Tintineac: I had told the volunteer that I was feeling tired, and he said, "Whenever you feel tired, just look out on the beautiful French landscape and think about how wonderful it is." He was so right: on the return trip from Brest, we could actually see the mountain that we'd had to traverse to reach Brest, and we could appreciate the sweeping vistas from the mountaintop.
My knee was still bothering me, however, by the time we rolled into Carhaix, so I made my way straight over to the medic area to see if perhaps this control could provide me with some ibuprofen. This time, there were in fact doctors available. Apparently they were still unable to dispense ibuprofen to be taken orally, but they had some ibuprofen gel that could be directly applied to the affected area. The relief felt tremendous. The doctor also wrote me a prescription for some ibuprofen which could be filled at any town's pharmacy; "I guess this is your souvenir from Carhaix," he told me with a sympathetic smile.
Night fell shortly after we left Carhaix, and at around the same time, the ibuprofen gel began to wear off. We made it back to San Nicolas, a food stop that had the most delicious food on the way out: giant, steaming bowls of cafe au lait, and crepes, glorious crepes. The food was just as delicious on the return ride. Fortified, we set off in the darkness again.
Somewhere in the stretch between Saint Nicolas and Loudeac, we wound up following riders who missed a turn, and got lost. At some point, riders ahead of us realized they were lost, and we started to check the cue sheet and scrap around for clues as to our whereabouts. Eventually, we came to a town where people were still awake. Amusingly, the people who were still awake were British, so i was able to step up and explain our predicament. The good and bad news was that we'd taken a 5-km detour. I was able to declare "5 kilometers" in French to the remaining riders, and got us turned back towards the route.
Unfortunately, the five bonus kilometers occurred in a hilly section of the route. I was having a hard enough time as it was, and the extra hills and lost time did not help one bit. In the meantime, as it got cooler and darker and damper, my shifters stopped functioning. Exhausted, in pain, frustrated with a bicycle that would not shift…that was a dark portion of the ride and I had to muster every ounce of my willpower to keep going. S stood by, quietly.
I knew I was done when we reached Loudeac. We arrived with even thirty minutes to spare before the closing of the control; SA had reminded me that if I could maintain just 10 miles per hour between controls, I could make it to the next control before it closed, too. But i was done for. S and I both got huge plates of food in the cafeteria, which we wolfed down, and then we got beds in the sleeping quarters. He asked for an hour and a quarter of sleep before being woken up, and I gave instructions not to wake me.
I woke up briefly when S got up, to kiss him goodbye and wish him well, and then i fell back to sleep.
