C'EST LA VIE !
Here I sit. Once again in a hotel room, living out of a bag. In a beautiful city called Andorra de la Valle, in Andorra. Yes- this will be my new country of residence. But wait. Lets start somewhere.
It's a day after Almeria. We had two one day classics in the south of Spain. I wake up completely broken. These two one day events has been hard on my body. Murcia was my first top 10 on the World Tour scene- under a quality field of riders. But for some reason it doesn’t make me feel anything. It's a good result, but it is not a win. Still it gives me hope for the future. It is still early on in the season. I am far from my peak and regretfully still a few kilos overweight. None the less very motivated to move on.
I finished with my 2 h recovery ride as I rush back to the hotel to catch my flight to Barcelona. Yes, I need to be in Andorra to finish some papers for the immigration offices. As I get to the hotel and my phone connects with the wifi I see a message from Xavier. “Hi Willie, we come pick you up in an Hour you have to go to Algarve.” So this tour was not planned but I welcomed it with open arms. I knew I would be a little fatigued but I’m moving into uncharted territory and have no idea how my body will handle the accumalative training loads.
It's the morning of the first stage of Vuelta Algarve. The team meeting starts on the bus as we arrived at the start venue of stage 1. It is a relatively flat stage and should be a bunch sprint. Jose walks pass me and says “Okay Willie today you do the sprint”. My palms became all sweaty and I feel like the first day my grandmother bought me a carbon bike. Thats the best way I am able to describe the feeling in words. Scared- but up for the challenge. I welcomed the opportunity because when you get given some pressure and a chance to prove yourself I’ve learned out of experience to always embrace it.
The stage finishes and I arrived in 14th position. I chickened out and braked to hard in the final corner- maybe I was just uneased after witnessing two huge crashes in the final 20 km, which filtered a moments hesitation into my head as I had to commit fully in the final corner. I comforted myself after crossing the finishing line by saying “ well done at least you didn’t crash”.
But that came back to haunt me later on...
Stage 2 starts. It is the queen stage with a 15km uphill finish. The weather is good on the start line and everyone much more relaxed than the first day. The break of seven riders goes early on. As usual the teams with the gc-riders start playing some chess and eventually team BMC take up the responsibility of chasing. As the chase starts, the pace is high.
50 km into the race my knee started bothering me. I spoke with Jose, who was in the car about it, and they called me back. I quickly lie on the ground as Hansie manipulates and aligns my body. I quickly jump back on the bike- pain free and draft through the cars back into the peloton as if nothing happened. The riders call Hansie Dr Pain. Maybe because the treatment hurt so much sometimes. But nonetheless he is like no guy I have ever met. Absolutely brilliant in what he does!
135 KM into the race we crest a brutally steep 2 km section of the route. But it's okay- we were only doing like 430 watts so for me it is just just over threshold. We immediately start with a steep decent. By now many guys are suffering and started to loose some concentration. 1km into the decent a huge crashed happened right in front of me. I am forced to go off the road and crash heavily at 60 + km/h. I jump up as quickly as possible, put on my chain and go. There is a thorn bush stuck between my breaks and wheels as I started riding, but I continued riding and didn’t stop. I'll wait for the team car to approach me, then the mechanic will remove it- that way I don’t have to stop again and waste valuable time. After about 5km I start feeling a throbbing pain in my left shoulder. I went to the race doctors car and grab onto the car with the shoulder that hurt so that they can feel if everything is okay. He does his initial inspection and assures me all is okay. As I was holding onto the car I wanted to believe in his judgement- but something really didn’t feel right. I can’t remember that it was this difficult holding onto the car. But in my utmost denial I soldier on and take his word for granted.
10 km laters the adrenaline subsided and my shoulder started to pain that little bit more. I then thought to myself. I am not going to move up in the bunch now. I am just going to chill a little bit more in the back until the pain goes away and then move up before the final climb. Seriously, wtf was I thinking?? Could I be that delusional?…perhaps, but something inside me just didn’t want to let go. It is once again something I cannot describe. Can passion be described in words?
As we approached the final part of the decent I bunny hopped a speed bump. SNAP!... Yes, I could hear my own collarbone snap in my ears. That was when I knew. I called Jose in the radio so that Hansie can check if all was okay. After all, if there is one person that I would trust 100% it is him. But why ask him if I already actually knew? Could I really be that stupid and in so much denial? Yes, it took Hansie 2 seconds to tell me how it broke…and looking at the x-rays afterwards it actually broke exactly as he said. I broke my hip in the start of 2015 Gabon and Burst into tears of the emotional trauma which was a story on its own. I broke my Collarbone in France in May of 2016 only having a 6-month contact. I lied on the ground in the pouring rain and burst into tears not because of pain but just the disappointment as I was escorted away by the race ambulance. I stood there 50 kms to go on the second stage of Tour of Algarve. There was no tears. No remorse. Just nothing. Life has changed me. For the first time I stood there as a grown man. Ive learned to see the positive in all things- thats happiness. I've learned to embrace the pain and accept the inevitable that can not be foreseen.
Now sitting in my Hotel Room in Beautiful Andorra de la Valle. It got me thinking. Yes I broke my Collarbone. But it's three days after the operation. And I am already hitting the gym and doing 2 hours a day on my bike… was it really a setback? Or is a broken collarbone merely what we make of it to be in our mind. One thing is sure as hell. It has done nothing to my cycling or happiness.
Yours truly
Smurfy
