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Oh man, what a weekend!

It's now a good 2 weeks ago, but slowly the memories are fading. I guess that is one of the safety mechanisms of the human psyche. When I someday retire - I believe - I will look at the human psyche and the matter of the process of change more closely. But now, back to the actual topic.



I had signed up for the 24 hour race in the Olympia Park in Munich - totally convinced that nothing could be as hardcore as my odyssey at the 600km Brevet.. I don't want to spoil the ending… but I will mention here that it was worse!

It was to be my last big unit before the P-B-P and so I stood at the singles starting line on Saturday at 1pm. The weather was great. Well, the weather was great for spending the day lazing at the beach, not for spending 24 hours in the saddle. Oh well, he who says A, must also say B. I had scouted out the track with Thomas earlier and from that point on, I knew that when I had imagined a comfortable weekend on my bike, I had been more wrong than ever before. I thought 4.6m/7,5km through the Olympia compound with 311 vertical ft/95hm would be a roll in the park, but no… The track was extremely varied and finding a rhythm was impossible… rolling out was not in the cards.



Oh well, it was what it was. As I had mentioned earlier, the start was at 1pm and after about 6 hours fun-time was just about over. The continuous change in rhythm was really starting to get to me and I began yearning for a Brevet, where you ride in the same direction for hours and it's monotone, even meditative. Here, however, concentration was always of the essence.

Thomas almost up at the top…


……and on his way down again


The atmosphere along the track was indescribable. Late into the night - I really had no sense of time, but I'm guessing til about 3am - spectators were there to cheer us up even the steepest slopes. It was awesome.

I would sometimes see our Pirate team of 4 briefly from behind, when they flew past me on their way to 4th place. I didn't really believe the isolated words of encouragement, "it looks good", because I felt like shit, but they did work. Ron's picture taking that began around the same time did it's job too. However, at 5am, it was over. Done. I had to take a break - I was dead tired and slept uneasily until my father woke me at 6:30am as promised. The last 6.5 hours ended somehow and I finished at 1pm. Never again!


.....at least not until June 28/29 2008. I'll be starting again then.


What was I talking about?
Gruß

Andreas



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