Just a day and a bit to go. I’d had my final sleep stop and now it was just the simple matter of an all-nighter to get me through to the finish line in Thessaloniki.

Between here and there lay CP4 in Meteora – the final control point – and finally the long parcours to the finish line. The layout of these brought riders tantalisingly close to Thessaloniki on their way from CP4 before whisking them further north to start the parcours.

In this final episode:

• Trying and failing to fight drowsiness with Coke 🥱 (not that kind)
• Losing motor function in my left hand 🤚
• Being mobbed by supersonic flies 🪰

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The last third of the race. By this point the field of riders had elongated to cover half of Europe, and the order of things was becoming a bit clearer. I’d come back from my routing gaffe a few days ago and, mentally speaking, was fully back in the game.

The next couple of days would have some of the race’s toughest terrain, which I was pretty anxious about, but I’d also be crossing my last border (into Greece) and taking my last actual sleep stop before the final all-nighter to the finish.

And most importantly, I’d soon be getting my EU data roaming access back 🥳🇪🇺

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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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This year I returned to the Transcontinental Race for my second attempt, in spite of promises to myself and my long-suffering partner that I wouldn’t. I’d vowed last year not to repeat the TCR in 2023 – such was the burden on my personal life. But when I scratched, all that changed.

Despite being in many ways a tougher race than last year’s (thanks mostly to the weather and terrain), this one had a much happier ending. Spoiler alert: I didn’t scratch 🥳

I was cap 119 and here’s part one of my story.

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What does the aftermath of the TCR look like? How did I scratch, what did I do afterwards, and how did I feel about it?

Featuring:

• 🧛 Adventures in Transylvania
• 🤕 Bodily afflictions
• 🏖 Transitioning from an ultra race to a beach resort
• 💸 Finding out how much I actually paid for the TCR
• 🔮 My plans for the future

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The final stretch: CP3, CP4, Burgas. This was the part where I was expecting things to get a bit wild. Questionable road surfaces, rabid dogs, bears, vampires and who knew what else.

But at the same time, the end was in sight. My other half, Miranda, was volunteering at CP4, so there was not long before I’d be seeing her. And then of course she’d be at the finish, too. The light was very much appearing at the end of the tunnel.

But first, I had to get there.

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I’d reached the Alps. A couple of hundred kilometres to go and I’d be at CP2, which marked a major turning point in the race. Up until this point, the route had been in the familiar territory of Western Europe.

But now the race was turning east. This was where the real adventure would start, as if there hadn’t been enough of that already. The temperature would climb, the landscapes would dry out, the culture, language, and even alphabets would change. The familiarity of home had provided an emotional safety net, which I’d now have to do without.

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Stage 1 (of 1) of the TCR began at 22:00 on Sunday the 24th of July.

The timing might seem inconvenient, but in a couple of ways it actually made things simpler. For most ultra-events you face a tough decision on day one: to ride through the first night or not? You’ll make extra progress on day one, but at the cost of building up sleep debt. On the other hand, you might as well capitalise on your freshness to get ahead early. The effects this will have later in the race are not obvious. It’s not an easy call.

Of course, if the organiser decides to start the race in the evening, they are effectively taking this difficult decision away from you. In our case it also meant being able to escape the densely populated Benelux area at night while everyone was sleeping and the roads were empty. It certainly made for a peaceful start to the race.

Speaking of tough decisions, there wasn’t long to wait before the first routing dilemma – in fact, the difficulty started pretty much immediately on leaving Geraardsbergen.

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