Friday, February 4, 2011

First Day in Sudan. January 26

Woke up early this morning even though the clocks had changed so could have actually got up an hour later. But everyone was up early! It was good to have proper seats and tables as well as music from our trucks. Got packed up and ready for today's 150 km. There has been a bit of confusion and messing around over the clocking out and in -deciding when to press the button and when to go!! So today we just set our buttons and set off - quite slowly at first. There was me Scott, Paul and Bastiaan - just waiting for the others to catch up. Paul and Scott were ahead going slightly quicker and starting to get ahead of us. We didn't think too much of it - others caught up with us and by now Paul and Scott were well away! There was indecision in the group as to whether to close them down or let them go. Two people on their own for the day is hard work.

After about 50 k the group decided to try to chase them down so went faster and faster - only stopping for a 2 minute lunch - time for the bathroom, fill up the water bottle, make acsandwich and then back on the bike eating and riding with one hand.

Finally just as I ate the last of my sandwich the rest of the group caught me up and off wecwent again! Averaging 40 km/h - then nearly 50 km/h - flat out - I was quite encouraged that I could stick it out longer than some of the others. We were working together but going very fast - gradually lost Dennis, Adam, Jorg and Hendry. After about 130 km I struggled like crazy up a hill and rode with Scott for a while for a 5 k recovery. Scott was really tired - he had done about 120 km with Paul - who he said was on a real mission!! Riding at 40 plus km/h Scott finally gave up. Then he told me to go ahead so I did about 15 km on my own - which was quite nice and finally arrived 5th into camp - I was really happy with that!!

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