~400km in 2 days! We did it!

I’m so proud of us! We rode nearly 400km in an unsupported ulra cycling event this weekend and we did it together! 

As far as my health is concerned, I think I’m back! This ride was HARD and I didn’t cry once, even tho I started my cycle the day before which usually makes me want to do a murder and take a nap. 

It was an absolutely gorgeous route in what felt like million degree heat on the first day. We started a little late, because reasons, but once we got going we maintained a pretty good pace through the first 100k. As soon as we got to France we encountered a motorcyclist being rescued by a medical helicopter, super scary stuff. I hope that person is okay! 

We carried on following a beautiful coastline, until I declared we needed to stop for food. I wish we’d taken pictures of the sandwiches the size of our faces. After lunch, It was time to go up up up! Coll de Banyuls was steeper than it needed to be, but we made it to the top. I started singing “paperboy, paperboy, all about that paperboy” in my head. It was so steep I thought my abs were going to start doing the spasm thing, but thankfully, they held up! 

After we took the disrespectfully windy descent, it was more beautiful coastline before making our way deeper into France. Well, technically we were never in Spain, nor France, we were in Catalonia! 

It was a long day, and the route kept going up and down until we finally found ourselves on the final 6k up to the hotel. We arrived to a gravel road that required a little bit of hike-a-bike. Will was pretty over it and didn’t want to stop for dinner, I knew we’d regret this, but I didn’t push.  After 220km on the day, we made it to the hotel, we took a bath and got our very sore butts into bed. It was a bit too much saddle time for one day. 

The next morning we woke up and had a light hotel breakfast, this would also be a source of regret, but I had plenty of snacks to glue me together until we could find food. We slowly climbed Coll d’Ares and Will decided there was a specific town where he’d like to have breakfast. The town was SO FAR. We eventually made it and had a really nice lunch. 

After lunch it felt like we were flying. Food is amazing. We had 100k left and one last mountain to climb. The only problem was most things were closed because it was Sunday, and we were both running out of water. Thankfully we found a gas station and filled up enough to get us to El Far. At this point we were on one of our regular routes. I could climb El far in the worst of states, I’ve done it before! Luckily today, I felt alright! We made our way up, enjoyed the lovely little traditional dance party they were having at the top, filled up our water and started the final 50-ish km to the finish. 

We flew through the final part of the route, we were both ready to be done. After about 20 hours of moving time, and 37 hours of elapsed time, we made it back to Banyoles. Success!

Thanks to Tarmac Ways for putting on a lovely event!

-Ayesha