Vuelta De Los Nos Faros

My latest brush with a multi-day event came in the form of a 3 day bicycling race around Puerto Rico, named Vuelta de los nos faros. Tour of the Nine Lighthouses.I have had the tendency in the past to massively underestimate an event & I can safely say my expectations of the tour were a long long way short in all senses.I should start by telling you a bit about my cycling background. With increasing knee problems caused by pounding roads, I was urged to consider purchasing a bicycle around September of 2007. The fact that I am entered for Ironman UK this year also necessitated this so out I went a bought a nice shiny trek madone. Come christmas I was still averaging twice the number of running miles as cycling miles. A bit of a worry with the event coming up, nevertheless I thought my basic fitness was up to hammering my way through 3 days of cycling. Surely if I could run for 50 odd miles in 8 or so hours I would be ok?

Sleeping in New York airport on the way to the caribbean i arrived the following evening and prepared myself for the 4:30am start the following morning by joining my Uncle Andrew for a nice italian meal and a couple of el presidente's or some such local beer.

The start came in the beautiful old city of San Juan. 2 hours of cycling through the city in the dark which brought us to our first drinks stop. I felt good. The pace had been ok but then we hadn't seen a hill yet. As the day wore on & the miles added up and the hills became more dramatic i started to suffer. My quads were getting a serious work out by mile 50 and with another 100 to go after this in just the first day I was worried. Whilst this was not strictly a 'race' the guys at the front seemed to delight in pushing an average pace of 55 km/h over the rolling hills!!!!Coming into the hotel on the first night at 6pm I was cooked. I averaged 155 HR over a 13 hour period incuding rest stops & used 8800 calories. The following two days saw 100 miles and 130 miles of more pushing respectively and my knees were done by day 3 and I had to call it quits 80 miles out from the finish. Very disappointing but the pain was intense by that point. If it was a race I would have carried on but this was a 'holiday' after all.

I was also unfortunate to witness an older American rider from Washington state have a heart attack sitting next to me in the bus on the third day. His hr shot up from 70 to 250 in the space of around 5 seconds. Partially caused I believe by the fact that from the moment he sat down next to me his eyes didn't leave his watch counting his bpm. We raced up the road towards the medical assistance and they hauled him onto the roadside and plugged him in to a defibrillator. He was ok in the end although he spent a couple of days in the hospital.

All in all this was an experience never to forget with Andrew and his group of cycling hardcore from the British Virgin Islands and as always with these multi-day events fantastic camaraderie, amazing scenery and a truly punishing physical work out in an exotic country left me feeling pangs of loss & that awful feeling of not being able to really convey to people what it is you've just been through on your return. I shall never quite be able to get over that feeling I don't think, but I wouldn't want to either. An opportunity to reset yourself and put everything into perspective in your day to day life should never be passed up.