Day I riding with malaria diagnosis – it’s a mando day and I am riding against doctor’s orders. How bad can it be? I had promised to take it easy and have every intention of doing so. However it is a Mando day which means I have to keep any time I get today. I am not going to push hard and of course everyone knows so no-one expects me to do too much! I actually feel fairly good in the morning – had to take my pills in the middle of the night and felt better then than I had going to bed. This morning I felt OK – not too good – not too bad! I pack everything up and am one of the last ones to leave. The racers are all standing around and I hope they are not waiting for me. So I just badge out and off I go. At this point I am still trying to decide what to do – maybe I should go with the racers, ride really hard for the day and get a good time? But there is a lot of climbing today and I quickly decide I am not going to be silly – what I really want is to get better as quickly as possible. So I will ride easy – just try not to lose too much time. I worked it out that I could afford to lose about 50 % on the day – ie if they took 4 hours I would be happy with 6.
Immediately we start climbing. The scenery is amazing – we are in a pine forest – the loggers are out. Wish I had my camera with me. There are guys working in the woods and little huts everywhere – triangular shaped constructions made of timber and black plastic. It is a hive of activity as everyone is waking and getting ready to start work. There are people with axes and big saws and you can hear the chain saws off in the woods. Seems to be a mixture of the old fashioned way and the more modern techniques. The timber seems to be cut into boards on site rather then transported off to saw mills first as we would expect in Europe/ America. Here they either seem to cut by hand into more manageable boards – I saw quite a few people doing this – looked amazing – I would love to have stopped and had a go – or I would hear the power circular saws being used to cut into smaller pieces for transport. It was then carried out of the woods and stacked at the side of the road. Some stacks were obviously for drying – with boards lying flat or end up alternately allowing the air to circulate and help to dry. Then there were stacks ready to be loaded on to the trucks. There were also quite a few people carrying the timber on their heads!!
I was riding pretty well and although really tired the scenery was just so amazing – there was plenty to look at and take my mind off other things! We were riding through a slight mist as well – it was a great road!
At one point we passed a saw mill with all its big trucks out front and on the other side of the road there were women carrying 3 or 4 planks of wood – what a contrast! This activity continued all the way to lunch. There were a few people at lunch surprised to see me and although it was good I didn’t hang around too long. In the afternoon we left the timber work behind and passed through several small villages – and the sun came out. Timewise I was doing quite well and trying hard to keep my heart rate low. Up the hills I just drop to my lowest gear and pedal steadily. I manage to keep my heart rate under 130 in the morning and allow it to go up to 140 in the afternoon.
I hadn’t read the board properly in the morning and for some reason was convinced the day’s distance was 117 km. Getting close to this mark and I was feeling excited that the day was nearly done. But there was no sign of the flag – 117, 118, 119, 120 km. I am getting worried. How did I manage to miss a turn – surely there haven’t been any? I decide I will ride to 127 – I might have misread the number. I decide if camp is not at 127km I will continue to 130 km and then at this point that’s it! I will give up!! I will hitchhike back to wherever camp is. If that happens I will lose EFI which means there will be no reason to race so I will get a taxi to Lilongwe and grab some rest. This is what I decided in my head! Then I look back and see the Brams back in the distance and finally at 124 km there is the Finish Flag – such a relief! I pull into camp and everyone congratulates me – I am absolutely exhausted!
Got my tent up and let it dry out. Don’t feel too bad but don’t feel good that’s for sure! I just try to recover and hope that the medicine starts to work and I can still get better while riding. That’s the only thing I worry about – whether in a week’s time I still feel bad and then have to stop riding! Just hoping I can figure out the best thing to do. At the moment just lying here in my tent trying to recover and thinking about all the things I need to do – keep up with these blogs for one thing!!
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