Day 2 of Epic Camp France started off pretty chill. Everyone was pretty smashed after climbing Mont Ventoux yesterday, so considering breakfast wouldn’t be ready until “later” (7am vs 6:15,) John decided to change things up a bit and do a pre-breakfast easy group run. People mostly stayed together and ran at a very chill pace. This ended up being really nice since the weather at Vaison was reatively warm. And in typical Epic Camp fashion, we rushed through breakfast and were out on our bikes asap.
The bike ride today was planned to be 171k with no KOM which meant that my plan was to sandbag as much as possible. I did a little bit of work at the front, but for the most part, I didn’t do much pulling. We made our way along through many small French villages, and there was an absolutely beautiful section along a river that blew me away. It was everything you image when you think about French cycling: Tunnels, a steep mountain gorge, and cutout in the mountain to make way for the road. SO beautiful. As far as river valleys go, I think this was the best one. The rest of the ride was beautiful as well. We could slowly see the big mountains in the Alps getting closer and closer. Around 140k, there was a turnoff onto a country road that brought us up a lot higher. From there we could see the lakes near Embrun, and the view was absolutely stunning. The lakes were a deep tourquiose that reminded me of tha lakes in Canada.
Since the ride was already 171k, I convinced Murray, who is currently in the red jersey, to push a little farther to make it to 200k for extra points. Initially John, who is currently in the yellow jersey, wasn’t interested, so we set off on our own. Once we got to the turnaround point, Murray turned back, but I went a little farther to push to 210k for one extra point (on top of the two bonus points for 200k.) But on the way back, I saw Phil, Newsom, and Rob heading out. VERY sneaky! That was probably a good call by Newsom though, because if he didn’t match, then he would have lost yellow. I respect that, but it’s also going to make it tough to beat him. Clearly he’s motivated.
After the ride we still needed to do our daily swim. I headed down to the lake with the intention of swimming with everyone else despite not having a wetsuit. If the water was too cold, I was prepared to run. Luckily the water was great, and I was able to swim. This was probably a good call since I feel like running another 10k would have eaten into my legs quite a bit. I like double runs, but when I need to be ready for KOM’s, I don’t really want to be running 12 miles per day.
Post swim was good. I took the first shuttle back and was ready for dinner well before 7:30. We had a fancy four course meal consisting of things I’ve never seen before and wouldn’t dream of pronouncing. The best part was that quite a few people left before dessert, so I had exactly 2.5 desserts. That was a win for sure.
And today I was lucky enough to get a massage after dinner. Last camp I don’t think I hit my three massage cap, so this time around I wanted to make sure I got it done early. We had two pretty monster days, so I think I was ready.
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