It’s amazing how much you can learn in the first few days of the Transcontinental Race, things that you would have thought you might have picked up before hand. I decided to make a list of some of those points in the hope that I’ll remember them for TCR No. 5.

At least that is the hope! Failing that, it makes for an entertaining list of stupid or funny things that I did, or should have done, or that just happened during the race. I’ve a feeling this is going to be a long ish list, some funny, some just plain dumb, others a little concerning and questionable decision making. At the end of the day, a list things not to do next time round. This is part 1 for now, we’ll see if there’s enough to add (remember) from the rest of the race.

Start -> CP1

• Not drinking enough. Really dull, I know but was an important lesson I learned quickly. I made sure that my hydration drink was doubled up with tablets to make sure I got my salts
• The route I took. I wasn’t the only one, and it wasn’t that stupid, but it was really hilly. Lots and lots of rolling ups and downs on rural French roads. I did about 6,000 meters on the first day even before I got to CP1.
• Not sleeping in the night. I was really sleepy at one point on that first night, and was rolling through the countryside looking for a suitable field to bivvy in. I had zero experience of bivvying, knowing where to bivvy, or more importantly where not to bivvy. In the early hours of that first morning I was about to stop. One look over my shoulder and the sight of a Dynamo light set my mind straight – ride through the night. Its not the daftest thing, and maybe done me alright in the end.
• Seeing things/hallucinating at night became quite unnerving. I’m really quite comfortable in my own company, but I think a big part of me needs to have people around or to interact with. When I was tired, alone and looking at the shadows in the trees from my dynamo, a combined sign and street post, I would see people, faces and all sorts. Some were downright scary, others were just weirdly familiar. The first two nights before I got any sleep were so bad for this.
• Not stopping to put sunscreen on Day 1. Again, a rider was following me. I felt like had to get away, but they kept getting closer and closer… All very daft. I ended up taking a detour down a random road and found some shelter from the sun and lathered on the sun screen. But not before my hands, arm, face and the palms of my hands (upturned while on the aero bars…) were red with sunburn. Everything was sore already!
• No Chamois cream. I’ve not used any in over a year now. Day 1 on the TCR my arse was shredded to bits. I yearned for chamois cream, or something to take the pain away. I did learn that after about 4 hours, the pain subsides. Until you shift your position in the saddle. Then there’s another 4 hours of pain.
• Not stopping for proper food. I found a boulangerie in the morning on Day 1 and bought some choquette’s and two pies. I saved one, ate the other. Everything else I ate that day was junk – crisps, chocolate, ice cream, haribo, fruit mentos. A baguette and some cheese should have been the order of the day.

• After nearly 600km from the start, I decided I was too tired to go on. I crept into a field where straw had just been harvested. Clumps of 2 inch high straw stems littered the field like an inviting bed of nails. I crept into the field, made my bed and suffered the discomfort
• Banging my shin on my pedal. This field was close to a farmhouse so I wanted to be as quiet as possible. I banged my shin on the pedal and all I wanted to do was scream! It instantly swelled up to a tennis ball size lump on my shin with a trickle of blood.
• Not really making my bed and laying on the straw. I just laid down in the warm evening covering myself with my gilet, looking up at the stars and drifted off to the throbbing of my shin. I woke up maybe an hour later with light rain falling shivering heavily. No other option than to pack up and get moving.
• Riding through the early dark morning when dead tired. Aero bars, night time, 6oo KM in the legs with 1 hour sleep = drifting off/micro sleeps on the bike. I managed to catch myself before it got to far, but should have got myself more sleep
• Racing another TCR rider through Clermont Ferrand to CP1. I make it to the checkpoint start, and forget which is the checkpoint hotel. When checking my notes, the rider I had just raced arrives and rocks straight up to the correct hotel, ahead of me.
• “Up the stairs, to the left of the lift” is what she said. I got in the lift and went up one floor and couldn’t find the bathroom. Back down and turned right and there it was.
• The state of my shorts. And my arse. Sore. I lathered sudocrem and savlon on the sore bits. Really don’t think it helped much.
• Chamois cream? Damn it.
• Following the CP1 parcours loaded on my GPS. I was so focused on following the parcours exactly, I wasn’t really looking where I was going. Off route came too many times
• Not listening or writing down what sign or date I needed to look for at the top of CP1 parcours as evidence of completing it. It was a date on a sign in a window. I think..? No one asked for this information anyway, but I wasted about 10-15 minutes at the top looking for it… Was anyone else sent on this treasure hunt?!

If you have enjoyed this, let me know in the comments below as I have many more tales of woe and failure to divulge.