The first two control points of the race came in (relatively) quick succession, being only around 600 km from one another. With most of the Alpine climbing coming before CP1, it’d only take a day and a bit to reach CP2 from there.

So I’d soon have the difficult mountainous start that I’d been worrying about so much behind me. This was a big motivator. There’d be more mountains to come, of course, but they shouldn’t be thaaat bad 🤞 Until I reached Greece, of course, but that was a problem for future me to deal with.

For now, things were gonna be nice and easy. Right?

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CP1 in Livigno, and its Alpine surroundings, were the first serious challenge in the race and it was gonna be tough. I was nervous about it. For around 400 km there would be repeated climbs of 500 m and more, with precious little flat ground on which to recover.

Long climbs like these have in the past been a bit of an Achilles heel for me, my lower back being weak and tending to get painful after too much climbing. And that’s to say nothing of the forecast of rain and near-freezing temperatures up on the passes in the coming days.

In the meantime, I had to cross France and Switzerland to get there. Unlike last year, there was no big routing dilemma on the first day. Most of the field chose the same route through France (with a few oddballs going further north), so I had more company than I’d bargained for for at least the first 9 hours or so.

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