The Epic story updated !!

Hi again from Rick

I was just reading through my blog post again to see if it triggered any more memories of the race - things I forgot to mention - when it struck me that reading my blog may give readers the wrong idea, making it seem as if the Epic was relatively easy.

False impressions
This is entirely the wrong impression, make no mistake - the Epic was not easy, it was tough, hard on the body, painful at times, and mentally challenging. Dr Evil certainly knows how to mess with you!! He is a past master at this - often taking you right up to the race village and finish area - before turning you away from it on some arbitrary detour before finally letting you finish the day.

Mind games
While I didn't state it in the post - there were times during the race - when I and i'm pretty sure - many others thought - "Why am I doing this? Why are we beating ourselves up like this? Why did I pay good money, just to suffer? Why not just stop now? Or, when we got to one of the "mind game" detours thought - why not just go straight to the camp? why bother riding this F!@#$% detour?

Team event
This is one of the reasons the Epic is a team event !! Everyone (except possibly the top riders and the Pro's) goes through these periods. It is at these times where you rely on your partner for support. The theory being that when one of you is suffering, the other one will cajole or motivate you to continue and vice versa - and this generally seems to be the case.

In some cases the support is physical with the stronger rider pushing the weaker partner up hills, allowing him to hang on to the back of your shirt pockets, or pushing his bike when he is struggling, while in others it is just a friendly word of encouragement - or in some cases a not so friendly word!!

We saw one rider - during the prologue - swearing at his partner - "Get up you lazy F!@#$% Bastard, we didn't F!@#$%^ come all this way so you could just F#$%@!^ give up!!

Divide and conquer
Sometimes both of you are suffering - and you then need to work together even more. At these times it is helpful to break things down into small bits. - as an old saying goes "How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time". Mentally dividing stages up into small sections makes them easier to get through, riding "one hill at a time" or "waterpoint to waterpoint" certainly makes things more bearable - as each point reached is a small victory in itself.

Daily slog
Mentally the Epic is demanding - waking up early each morning, tired with aching muscles or stiff joints. having to wriggle and squirm around to get ready in a small tent with the prospect of anywhere from 4 to 9 hours riding ahead of you, day after day for 8 days, is not easy.

It is at times like these, where the value of having a backup team, a good maintenance crew taking care of your bike and physio's to massage you and relax your weary muscles after each stage, definitely shows.

Hindsight
The positive slant on my previous post is really an error of hindsight - thinking back and writing the details down afterward, when the pain and suffering has faded. When an event such as this is successfully completed, you tend to focus almost entirely on the good times during the race - rather than the hard times, where you were suffering and cursing the course designer, and deciding what you would do to him, if you met him in a dark alley one night.

Final thoughts
Choose your partner well, decide on a common goal and a riding strategy and work together. Ensure you do sufficient training (NB!! add running, core and gym work to your training). Use decent, well maintained bikes, and ensure you have reasonable offroad riding skills
Eat and drink properly, before, during and after each stage (NB - start doing this during training so it becomes a habit)

- and successfully finishing the Cape Epic is achievable.

Riding the Cape Epic will never be easy, but then again, nothing worth doing, ever is!!!