Epic Day 2

It's a little after 3 am Tuesday morning. I think I said in my prior writeup that yesterdays ride alone made the trip worthwile. It seems that statement may be put to the test. Day 2 did not going so well for me. I woke up with adductors/hamstrings on my left leg very tight/spasming and really could barely walk. This has been a recurring problem for me over the past year. It seems to flare up every month or so at the most inopportune times. It happened the weekend before IM Arizona in April and again in May before a half ironman in Florida. Fortunately it usually frees up after a few days to a week. After this trip I'm going to get some medical advice to try and identify the cause see if I can get a strength/stretching program to address it. Notwithstanding that I could barely walk I did get in a 3 km swim at 6:30. It was a bit tough as I couldn't kick at all but the view from the pool was worth it. It was a clean 50 meter pool surrounded by mountains and the sun was out. After the swim I had some breakfast (italians do coffee/espresso very well) then John Ellis our resident masseuse worked on my leg. That did some good so I decided to try to ride. Getting my leg over the top tube was quite a challenge but I managed and rolled out. I didn't think I was that bad but one of our support crew/resident mother hen told me afterwards that my left leg was kicked way out on the bike and I looked pretty sad. After a quick traverse through Trento it was onto the mountains. In short order I was out the back and my leg was getting worse. I was ready to call it a day after an hour but unfortunately our trail vehicle thought I was with a group up ahead so I pushed. At least the scenery was nice. These mountains have a rugged beauty with lots of exposed rock walls/waterfalls and the area is quite green due to all the recent rain. After an hour and a half it was raining, I was cold and couldn't find any of the towns I was coming through on my route map. The last thing I wanted to do was ride an extra hour in the rain in the wrong direction with a bum leg:) Fortunately I was going the right way. about 2.5 hours into the ride john ellis doubled back to look for me. He found me about 2 km from the top of our first king of the mountains climb. I was more than ready to climb into the car but he said "just a bit farther to the top mate and sped off". I made it to the top the almost fell over when I stopped and tried to put weight on my left leg. The next challenge was get off the bike-the leg wasn't going over the top tube that's for sure. Fortunately my wits were still about me so we took the from wheel off, turned the handlebars sideways, and slid the bike out from under me. So I got into 2.5 hours riding but only 45 km as it was all uphill and I wasn't exactly flying. I think my bike computer said there was 4500 feet or so of climbing to that point.For the rest of the day I was in the car watching the other campers put in a great effort. On the descent off that first climb we had an amazing view of the valley from over a 1000 meters up. John Ellis stopped the car for a photo. Hopefully it will do the scene justice. It was pretty miserable in the rain and a long day as we started riding around 10 am and they were finishing between 5 and 6 pm. An impressive effort by one and all and the boys (and girls) are doing a good job of picking each other up.Gordo is still looking very strong. He was off the front all day and looking very comfortable. I believe John Newsome, Stephen and Molina were next over the first climb. Stephen widened his points lead with a 6 km swim and added on 20km on the bike to get to 180 km/112 miles. I'm pretty sure he would have kept going to 210 for a couple more points but he bumped up against the 12 hour rule we have - you must finish your days training within 12 hours of starting your first session. Our female camper Jo continues to rack up the run miles - after 10 km Sunday morning and another 30 or so in the afternoon she ran to the pool 10km swam and then ran back. Solid.My leg got pretty awful up through dinner last night. Could barely walk. I havn't been able to sleep much but have been stretching massaging and taking magnessium (muscle relaxer) and ibuprofen antiinflamatory and it is really freeing up. I am hopeful that I'll be riding again in a couple days.I'll probably sleep a good bit in the car tomorrow. Our support crew includes Ian and Julie Wright who moved from the UK to start Pyrenees Multisport - kind of a B and B/training facility. Ian was on our support crew in France. Julie reminds one of Mary Poppins with a bubbly attitude and a lovely accent and has taken to calling me "hop along" given my funny current gait. She's also a bit of a mother hen and has been going out of here way to make me comfortable. John Ellis from New Zealand, Ian and Julie really are the best - you could not ask for anything more in a support crew.Our dinners have been in restaurants and the past two nights they have not been lacking in quality or quantity. Last night we started off with a salad then they brought out a rather large plate for each of us with lasagna, fettucine with mushrooms and a wonderful gnocchi mixed with spinach. This was more than a meal in itself and they also brought out 3 more family style plates of the same items. Those weren't even fully eaten and that's saying something with 11 Epic Campers who just had a very big day.As if that was not enough they then brought each of us a medium sized piece of chicken and steak and toped it off with dessert which was I think a tart and a piece of apple struddel for each of us. I also had a shot of lemoncello as Molina was offering and a very good birra. Although we are technically in Italy, the area is very German. For instance the water we had was Kaiser Dolomiti bottled in Italy but with the label in German. A large portion of the Dolomites was actually part of Germany prior to WWI and a majority of the schools teach in German.Well, that's probably enough for now.