Unfortunately, no such calculation was ever made. Mainly because only just on Monday the 19^th, I realised around 16:00 that I had put the start date of the event wrong in my agenda. I thought with the event ‘officially’ starting on the 22^nd, that also automatically meant that was the day of the briefing. What followed was one of the most intense stress-experiences of my life. Luckily, I (also) have 27 years of experience with placing myself in situations like these, so the panic-block quickly made way for the necessary problem solving. (Had I done my calculations on time, I would – of course – also have figured out it wasn’t adding up.)

With suddenly having 24 hours less to prepare, doing the calculations were the first (and only) thing to go out of the window. I just had some route-checking and shopping left to do, which was still perfectly doable in the time I had left.

As with any long distance ride, I have been in many different moods when I was on the road, during the many hours of the race. So I will try to divide this report into a few sections of couples of hours, with different moods assigned to them. And while I do that, I will do the calculations I should have done before I started the race. I’m doing this in the hope I’ll be able to teach myself a lesson with it, whatever that lesson may be :-)

THE MATH

Now, let’s start with some of the math. An ultra of approximately 1.000 kilometres, and 87 hours to complete the race. If I divide 87 hours by 24, that meant I would have approximately 3,6 days to complete the full distance. Sounded very doable; less than 300 kilometres per day. And that’s all the ‘worrying’ and calculating I did while signing up for the race. I never thought of it again.

My final route was – and this came as a shock – 1.176 kilometres long, with 11.580 metres of elevation gain. Also a ‘good’ thing to mention is that 6.240 metres of that climbing were to be done in the last 403 kilometres. So, when you’d completed half of the course in distance, you definitely hadn’t yet covered half of the climbing.

Finally, here’s the calculation I should have done but didn’t: With the official time cut-off being after 87 hours, that meant that on average, I would have had to cycle 1.176km/87h ≈ 13,5 km/h.

At this point I have no idea if the rest of what I’m about to write (and calculate) is going to be confrontational or not. So, imagine me sitting in a weirdly folded position on my couch, hesitantly looking at my fingertips instead of letting them run around the keyboard of my laptop. I’m nervous, but here I go!!! (In another 15 minutes or so.)

A ROCKY (COBBLY?) START

[HOUR 0 » 1] // KMs needed so far: 13,5 // KMs done so far: 13,4

At 06:00 on Thursday morning, we cycled as a group through the first part of the mandatory parcours in Liège. After completing the steep climb up to the citadel, it would be every person for themselves, and the race would have officially started.

I noticed myself worrying about what other people in the group were thinking of me. “Don’t they all think I brought way too much stuff?” “That bicycle looks way too cheaply put together to do such a thing on.” “This person looks like someone who doesn’t belong here.” Of course, these things weren’t what other people were thinking of me. Well, maybe they were, but I will never know. These things were what Í was thinking of me, at that moment. And then my chain fell off.

In the middle of the climb to the ciatdel, as I tried to switch to my lightest gear, my chain was suddenly hanging between my spokes and my cassette. I clipped out, put the chain back on and pretended to be thinking of a solution while my brain was only screaming: “Whaaaaa!” After the internal screaming I got back on my bike, and continued cycling in the second lightest gear. After 300 metres or so, I realised that that was just going to terribly fuck up my legs, so I continued on foot. There I was, with a head filled with self-doubt, walking up the very first climb.

The plan became to keep cycling until my first planned stop, and fix my derailleur at the same time so I wouldn’t need an extra stop. I knew all I had to do was to turn the limit screw back in: something me and a friend apparently forgot to do while we were testing something. At the time, it seemed best to focus on getting my head in the right place, and I thought moving forward as much as I could would contribute to that. I caught up with 2 people, which lifted my spirits a little. And then my chain fell off again while climbing a bridge. I had gone from my biggest chainring to the biggest sprocket on my cassette. Now, I at least was 100% sure what the problem was, but I also realised I wasn’t going to be able remember not to use these two specific gears. I got off my bike to fix it and the people I’d caught up with passed me by for the second time. I found myself back in last position, and with that there was the internal “Whaaaaa!” again.

I knew I had some mental bouncing back to do straight away. I had just lost at least 25 minutes (in total) to a stupidity. Stuff like this would happen to everybody throughout the race, I thought to myself, it was just difficult that it happened immediately at the beginning for me. It didn’t necessarily mean I wasn’t going to make it to the finish line. I just had to keep pedalling, and not worry too much. I could do this.

“Whaaaa!”, but still smiling - 📸 @jacob_kopecky

WHAT’S WITH CHIMAY?

[HOUR 1 » 9] // KMs needed so far: 121,5 // KMs done so far: 163,1

In the next 4 hours, the only stop I made was to write the numbers of the forbidden roads on my wrist. I suddenly worried that I might have missed something while checking the map, and the only way to completely take that worry away, was to make sure I knew what the numbers were. (By the time I was in France I memorised all of them 🤡)

• For Belgium: N63; N617; N90; N97; N5.

• For France: N2; D1003; D980; D987; D977.

I smoothly reached the parcours in Dinant, with having to take just one little detour because of some festivities going on in a town I was crossing. My left arm and leg were feeling a bit colder than the rest of my body because of the strong winds, but I knew they would soon warm up on the mandatory 20% climb that followed.

As I was walking up, I saw Ken (a fellow participant and fellow bike messenger I had met on the train to Liège) coming down in the descent. He encouraged me and told me I was almost there. It was nice to see a familiar face and, shortly after, also some the other participants. All of my problems from the morning were now forgotten. I made my way up, and – per my route – decided to not descend from the steep side of the climb, to save my hands from cramping from having to continuously squeeze the breaks. I would continue what I was doing up until my first planned stop in Couvin. I had picked this specific stop because later on in my route I would have to make bigger detours for supermarkets, and by then it would also be easier to get in trouble with their closing times (~19:30).

In these few hours, there was one thing that repeatedly kept popping up in my head: “Why was there a Chimay-logo in the PowerPoint at the briefing?” I shut down the thought a few times by reminding myself that I had read the handbook well, and I couldn’t possibly have missed something. Until I remembered that’s exactly what ADHD does. Scrolling through the handbook once more, I saw the Chimay brewery was actually a checkpoint. I altered my route on my phone, and then would just have to switch to navigating with my phone once I reached a town called Baileux. The checkpoint wasn’t at all a checkpoint like I was expecting, haha. After wandering around on the terrain a bit, I decided to check the tracking-website and saw I got the timestamp by just cycling past the location. So, on I went.

NOT SURE IF I GOT KOMOOTED OR IF KOMOOT GOT WENDY’D

[HOUR 9 » 10] // KMs needed so far: 135 // KMs done so far: 180

UTTER CONTENTMENT

[HOUR 10 » 13] // KMs needed so far: 175,5 // KMs done so far: 238

LAON > COMPIÈGNE

[HOUR 13 » 19] // KMs needed so far: 256,5 // KMs done so far: 331

Even though I set an alarm clock for it, the break took a little too long. I didn’t move for almost an hour, and this was mainly because I remained indecisive about my sleeping arrangements. So, the plan to not ‘get lost’ in time was there, the execution of it still needs some work.

Laon itself was absolutely beautiful. I did not stop to take any pictures as I knew at that time: time idle is time I can’t use for sleep. I was feeling intensely sleepy right before Laon, almost problematically so, but it had magically disappeared during the climb up to the medieval city. It was getting dark when I was descending, and what followed were mostly empty and quiet roads, with every now and then a car racing by way faster than the speed limit. I had to take one detour because of a closed bridge, but nothing too difficult. After bumping into some other riders looking for a sleeping spot in Compiègne, I was in my hotel room at 01:15, and asleep by 02:15. And yes, that’s a record.

MENTAL MAYHEM

[HOUR 25 » 32] // KMs needed so far: 432 // KMs done so far: 438 (with the former day’s detour kms deducted)

What followed was an immense internal struggle regarding my position in the race, mostly about what and why that suddenly meant something to me. I was judging my self-worth by the performance of others. Something that I hadn’t seen myself do for years. I was completely aware of my thoughts being ‘just thoughts’, but could not for the life of me figure out how to stop thinking them. It was absolutely horrible. “I feel like I'm doing pretty well, but apparently I 'suck'?” I also suddenly couldn’t remember if the cut-off time for the finish was at 09:00am or 09:00pm, which lead to me anxiously trying to calculate how many hours there were still left in the race, and how much distance I still had to cover in them. A calculation I never managed to finish each time I tried, because my brain would just interrupt itself with something else to worry about.

A little later I realised I was also comparing myself to people who skipped a night of sleep. So that was exactly what I was going to do, too. With this, decision just outside of Paris, I managed to 'befriend' myself again. Even though I knew my newfound tactic wasn’t grounded in any sound reasoning, – as I still needed factors outside of myself to feel good about myself – it helped, so for now it was something I was willing to settle for.

PARISIAN (NON)PERCEPTIONS

[HOUR 32 » 38] // KMs needed so far: 513 // KMs done so far: 500

I flew through Paris, and saw myself catching up on the map again, passing people by. And with having turned around direction-wise in Paris, the horrible headwind had also finally come to an end. I think after what had been the hardest part of the race for me, this was definitely the easiest part. I felt physically and mentally stable again, and was confident about cycling through the night. I stopped for a supermarket re-supply in Meaux, after which it soon started to get dark again.

(Little did I know I was actually behind schedule at this point. I was feeling good, so not a worry in the world…)

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

[HOUR 38 » 47] // KMs needed so far: 634,5 // KMs done so far: 649

This was absolutely the smoothest night I’ve ever cycled through. There were a few difficult moments, but I knew I could promise myself things would get better again, as I had done it before, and I knew things always dó get better. Whenever I was feeling like I may be getting too tired, or when I started to doubt whether I would actually make it through the night, I kindly and calmly promised myself that I would. I really liked the friendly vibe I had going on with myself here.

WENDY JUMPS IN DITCH

[HOUR 47 » 51] // KMs needed so far: 688,5 // KMs done so far 699

As the sun started shining brighter, I started thinking about how far I still was from the finish. I had done more than half the distance now, and since it was only Saturday morning, I thought I could surely still manage to do the other half in the two remaining days. There were some failed attempts at calculating while riding, but eventually I drew the following conclusion: cycling 100 kilometres took me about 6 hours at the slowest. And since I was already tired, I would use that number to measure in how far making it to the finish line in time was still realistic. Around 06:00 in the morning, I had about 500 kilometres to go, and 39 hours left in the race. Of course, I would still have to find a place and some time to sleep, but at this point I was still very confident everything was going to work out.

Shortly after that, I entered the first gravel section. The start of it was smoother than I thought it would be: the road was way less bumpy than it looked on Google Street View. But during the second half of the first section, I was again painfully reminded of my rather unorthodox approach to eating breakfast in Compiègne. The second section was the ‘main event’ though, it was the road that saved me the most distance and a few metres in climbing. The road was mostly going downhill, and for the parts I could see, it looked like a very okay road to use. The start of it was absolutely great. I was on top of a hill and the sun was casting beautiful shades through the hills lower than the one I was on. I was really enjoying the start of this morning. Then the anticipated descent came: it was steeper than I thought, and the road was mostly covered with grass. Big ouch for my hands again.

I crossed the forbidden D987, and continued on the grass-covered road that was now flat. About 400 metres later, I entered something that looked like the beginning of a small forest. “Oh boy”, I thought, “here we go.” Just a few moments later I stumbled upon a bunch of plants really blocking the road. It was probably a fallen tree, but it was completely overgrown by a variety of other green-leafed things. A little puzzled, I laid down my bike, and took out my phone to check the map. There was definitely supposed to be a road there. I knew that going back would be problematic, as I would have to go back up the steep grass-hill again. I also couldn’t take an earlier turn because that would land me on the D987. This meant I was going on an adventure.

Unbothered by the brambles scratching my legs, I made my way through a piece of land that seemed to have completely been reclaimed by nature. After some wandering around, I found a route suitable to carry my bike through. I saw the sun shining through the leaves a little further ahead, and I concluded that indicated that I had found my way out. I went back to get my bike, and carried it to where I had ended my first expedition. Only to discover about 50 metres later that I’d have to cross a ditch with rather steep edges to get to the place where I saw the sunlight coming from. Fuck.

Unfortunately, I had now only moved 500 metres in one hour. It was fun and I actually like having to deal with situations like these, but I think it’s safe to say this moment also greatly contributed to me not being able to finish the race. The amount and strength I used trying to figure out if I could make it through the bushes with my bike… not a lot of profit was yielded from that.

TO THE FINISH?

[HOUR 51 » 56] // KMs needed so far: 756 // KMs done so far: 773

It was now almost 09:00, and I was starting to run out of water. My planned supermarket stop in Sedan was still 60 kilometres away. I registered this problem, and then didn’t really do anything with it. As I soon made my way up to the Ardennes Canal, I finally caught a nice tailwind, and I just wanted to keep cycling. When crossing Le Chesne, I thought it looked like a town that might have a supermarket. I was right. While balancing a shitload of candy (which I still haven’t finished eating btw), some Red Bull, and some bottled water in my arms, I exchanged some confused looks with locals, and went on my way again. About 50 kilometres later, I reached Sedan, and decided to make a stop there as well. I needed some non-candy food, and to start thinking about how and when I was going to get some sleep.

I was still feeling pretty ok, but of course, the more the day would progress, the more I would stop and the more inefficient I would become while doing so. For a while I dreamt of the muffin farm again, but that was still 175 kilometres away from where I was. Eventually I decided it would be best to sleep for 4 to 5 hours and then finish the rest of the course in one go. I would try to get those hours as soon as I felt like the fatigue was affecting my cycling too much.

So, if I’d feel like I’d have too much trouble ‘managing’ stuff. In this case; my sunglasses were attached to one of my handlebar-bags in what wasn’t the most secure way. After a while I started feeling like keeping track of them falling off started to take up too much headspace. As soon as this ‘became’ the situation, I decided to just finish the last climb of the 4^th section (of 5) I had divided my complete route into, and then go look for a place to nap. Conveniently enough this was in a forest-y area, so I’d just go look for a nice spot between the trees.

Big fat BLERP.

A spot was found fast enough; a nice place between some trees and some ferns, close to the road, but shielded off from the noise of it. I could easily lay down my bike and crawl up on my emergency blanket next to it, while guarding my valuables with my body. My heartrate was still a bit too high, but I managed to calm my head and while focussing on my breathing, I could feel the rest of my body calm down too. Some rustling between the leaves kept me from falling asleep straight away, but eventually I started to doze off. It was almost 15:00 and my alarm clock was set for 20:00, which would mean that upon waking up, I would still have 25 hours to complete 413kms. Since I was expecting 6 hours per 100kms at the worst, I thought it would still be doable to make it to the finish on time.

Note

During the time I was trying to sleep, there was a message sent in the LPL-group chat, informing us that the time limit had been extended by three hours. Unfortunately, I missed this message because I was, well, pretty miserable and I had to be economical with my phone battery. I wasn’t aware of the time-limit having changed until I was charging my phone at a café in Esch-sur-Sûre. My further calculations are done with the new time limit: 1176km/90h ≈ 13,1 km/h.

YSJTASJGHOIUILKU

[HOUR 56 » 61] // KMs needed so far: 823,5 // KMs done so far: 791 (with the former day’s detour kms deducted)

Unfortunately I didn’t get much further than dozing off. Stomach acid had started travelling back up my throat and very quickly that became all I could ‘feel’. No way to focus on my breathing, no way to focus on calming my thoughts. Just a terrible burning feeling in my throat and chest. I stubbornly tried to continue sleeping for an hour or so, because I really needed it I was afraid that relocating would take up way too much time. But the trying to sleep went without any luck. Around 17:00 I started to pack everything again, and around 17:30 I was back on the bike.

Even getting my bike off the ground was a task I completed with a lot of difficulty; my body was feeling very weak from the goings-on in my body, and the lack of rest started to have an impact on my coordination.  However, once I got back to cycling again, it suddenly wasn’t so bad, physically. I did, however, cry a few times during the first couple of kilometres because of the situation I was in, and also because the idea of not being able to make it to the finish on time made me sad. I would just keep cycling in the hope my stomach would get better, and do another attempt at napping once I started feeling sleepy again. I was happy when I reached Bouillon, and felt newly motivated to start tackling the route into Luxembourg.

That motivation was slapped out of me on the first climb after Bouillon, haha. I barely made it up walking. Even though I forced myself to finish the climb walking straight up – to not let my body posture influence the way I was feeling too much – I realised I wasn’t going to be able to keep going like this. My brain needed a restart and my body could do with some rest. Just a short nap would do, I thought. I cycled a little further, and found a nice spot in the forest again. I set myself up comfortably against a tree, so I could sleep sitting up, just in case my stomach would start acting up again. The plan was to sleep for 2,5 hours, and then cycle through the night. I would then still have 23 hours (but apparently 26!!!) to complete 383kms. I still had faith.

5-STAR ULTRA-HOTEL

[HOUR 61 » 75] KMs needed so far: 982,5 // KMs done so far: 827

Pam pam pammmmm. It started to rain. Pouring. Cats and dogs. Pijpenstelen. I made something resembling a tent from my emergency blanket, and sat like that for a while. I still tried to sleep, but the rain made too much noise for me to really doze off. After about two hours, the rain stopped and I planned to go back on the road. My head was by now filled with doubt about whether I would actually be able to make it, and I struggled to decide how to proceed. I checked for Hotels and BnB’s near the route, but there seemed to be none located in the villages I was still going to cross. To get back to Bouillon I would have to climb a wall, which also seemed like a bad idea. If I was going to suffer, I’d rather do it moving forward. I dreamt again of being able to reach the (by now in my head) mythical muffin farm, which was at this point 143 kilometres away.

HOW TO DNF?

[HOUR 75 » 90] KMs needed so far: 1176 // KMs done so far: 901 // This being 901 kilometres of my ‘official’ route. In total I did 935 kilometres of cycling.

When I entered the courtyard of the Youth Hostel and I was greeted with a big round of applause, the first words out of my mouth were that people shouldn’t clap. I didn’t feel like I ‘earned’ that experience. Luckily, there’s a beautiful picture of this moment, that’ll hopefully help me remind and teach myself that I díd deserve that applause. I did the best I could at the time. You win some, you learn some.

The applause - 📸 @jacob_kopecky

A while after I’d crossed the finish line, I spoke to someone (I don’t remember your name or number, sorry!) who was able to use the muffin-place as a spot to warm up after the rain, hang his clothes out to dry, and eat properly. It had saved him from having to scratch. Proof the mythical status the place had gotten in my head, was assigned correctly. (I think the farm is glittery purple and there’s a lot of rainbows. Please don’t send me actual footage to ruin the dream 😜.)

I think by doing an ultra, you ‘create’ the opportunity to escape the normal structure of everyday life. You don’t ‘wake up > eat breakfast > do stuff > eat lunch > do stuff > eat dinner > hang a little > sleep in a bed’. You just do stuff whenever you feel like it needs to be done, and most of the times you don’t do the eating and the sleeping where ‘you’re supposed to’. You’re living completely outside the ‘etiquettes’ of what a normal day looks like. When Ken and I entered that restaurant, we also entered ‘the system’ again. Which also may have heightened the sense of being misfits, at least, for me. That was it. Back to normal life.

MAIN THEME/CONCLUSION

If there’s one thing that I kept reading through the lines as I was writing this, it’s a lack of trust in myself and my own skills. Which, honestly, is a hard thing to admit.

Of course, it wouldn’t be healthy to be without self-doubt. But I think it’s fair to say I got in my own way a little too much. If I would have had full confidence, I would have fixed my derailleur on the first climb in Liège straight away. I was just afraid of looking stupid while doing it. If I had trusted my routing, I wouldn’t have had to stop to write the forbidden roads on my arm, and I would not have had my gravel adventure near the border of France: the sketchy road I avoided, was just grass for 300 metres before turning back into tarmac. I was a little behind schedule when I left Compiègne, but the main reason I stayed behind was because I was beating myself up about it. Had I trusted the process and my abilities, I wouldn't have lost so much time in the beginning. BUT, if I had completely trusted myself, I would also have missed the checkpoint at the Chimay brewery. So there’s also that.

Another unexpected problem I was having, was seeing myself compared to the other participants. I’m not fast and I’m aware of that, and usually it doesn't bother me at all. I’m in long-distance cycling for the lessons it’s teaching me, not for the sake of getting it done at a fast(er) pace. But apparently, the visual confirmation of me being slow(er) hit different. During Race around the Netherlands, this was of course also the case. I then, however, had a perfectly fine reason to be cycling at the back of the race: I was the only person doing it on a cargobike. I wasn’t mentally prepared to be struggling with something like this, but it’s a lesson well learnt.

LPL was a great adventure, and during the race there were many moments of pure joy. I loved what I was doing and most of the times I also really loved the person I was while I was doing it. Nevertheless, there have also been plenty of moments where I got in my own way. Discovering them while writing about it, has been confrontational and uncomfortable, to say the least. I think a big part of our lives we just choose to stick to a narrative that suits us, instead of choosing to really look in the mirror and evaluate our contributions to the situations we’re in. I could just have said I got unlucky with my stomach issues and with the rain and the temperature at night (which I have been doing, ngl). But it’s not that simple. There have been plenty of choices and (non-)actions that got me to that point. Don’t get me wrong, I have complete understanding and self-compassion for how I ended up where I ended up. However, writing this report has also shown me I clearly have some things to work on if I want to keep doing these things productively. Which I will be doing, you don’t have to worry about that!!

Until the next one 😊