RAID vélo mag 77km of muddy hell!

I manage to finish 64th in my category on 200 cyclist and a good 165th on the overall 800 cyclist. Considering the extreme condition it's a very good result. i think i really like those kind of event.

I had manage to get my friend Dan.Gerous to do the event! Well it was not the good event of choice to start his first endurance race! First we stayed at my brothers place, the night before. We had less driving to do! On Saturday got to Old Quebec early enough to get our stuff for the event. Now,"no chance" of clear whether, from the first moment we got out of the car it was rain!! and rain. and rain.

So we prepared for a wet race. we had the chance to get a warm up of 20 min. Buy then we were all wet. we did go for the option to have rain coats on. Next we go and get to the start and wait! Not a good place for a start! Chateau Frontenac is nice, but not enough space. It was raining , raining and a bit cold from the wind. At 3. 2 .1 ... Race .... We get off from the banner!


Photo Par Manon Jacques

I had said to my running team mate, we will try to go out fast, to get better place as soon as we hit the woods.
We did just that, fast little pace to move up on the field. We got to the entrance of muddy hell. We were a bunch of riders together. it was tight going trough the little hill climb. We still managed a good pace and started to clear the pack. Dan as always was a good climber. i was seeing him climb in front of me with ease the rides. One or twice i was stuck behind some riders who stop in the climbs, made me get of the bike... but still i could see Jérôme in front of me! At the first feed stop, he was stop waiting for me... banana in hand, i said to him ... I'm not stopping .. I'm going... sadly from that point we lost each other he was seeing my green fluo Cannondale rain coat. But we could not get back together. From that point on i was on a good pace. Still it was incredibly muddy! always mud and mud. My pace was good till the mid point. 42km done and still 35km to go! Dan stopped at that half way mark, he had no brakes left in the back of the bike. My bike was so muddy the shifters started to go bad! And the brakes ... eating the pads and disk! Simply! At one point you get tired of the mud ... but when we got to the crossing of little rivers! you say cool lets clean up a bit! NO! the water was cold! I had cold feet getting out of that water. We had 3 rivers to cross. As the KM were moving up the more tired you get! Once crossed the haft mark, a few km later you start to have those fresh rider from the smaller RAID that pass you, they are all clean and ready to go. At first it's a bit annoying ... you have some 50km in the legs and they go at it full throttle!


That is Marie Gilbert, thanks! for the pace! Photo Par Manon Jacques

The only good thing that came out of this group is Manon Bernard and Marie Gilbert two riders from CVM Subway-Génétik team. They were doing the smaller RAID. but they had a good pace... so i decide to keep up with the girls! They were really nice to motivate me in saying keep it up. They managed a very good result in finishing in first and second place of the woman 30-39 group. So we stuck together for a few km.. once we got to the final hill ... i could not follow any more. we were coming to the 65km mark of the ride. i knew that this was the last hill climb. i had to do my best ... the rest was just downhill, i said to myself! Forget about it! i hit the wall at the 15km to go mark! I was so tired my arms could not keep up going downhill. it was rocky downhill!
then the easy muddy part till the end was energy sucking! ...my problem was to forget to feed and drink from the mark of the 15k to the one saying 3k to go! At this time i started to see stars! too much fatigue and not a lot of energy left! I had to stop and feed on a bar, a shoot of gel and water, more water... it took me about a minute or plus to get it back together. By that time some of the other riders had went by. But at this moment you just wish for the finish! ... When i saw that finish line, i had the little sprint... I gave all i had left! i had to cross the line with arms in the air! I was happy to finish this wonderful challenge! And what a challenge it was! Next race Raid Bras du nord!