2024 was the year of smaller challenges. After the Diagonale, I chose to take part in Liège-Bouillon-Liège. The short version of Liège-Paris-Liège. Three days to cover 500 kilometres.
Preparation
Apart from the holidays in April and the Diagonale, I didn’t do any specific preparation for this challenge. Since 1st July, I’ve been back on the bike, for part of the time, at work. That meant I was easily doing an extra 50km a week around Brussels with a loaded cargo bike. Naively, I thought that would help me get back into shape. Perhaps it did, but not enough to cover the 7,000 m of ascent on the 500 km course. On top of that, the bad weather prevented me from doing as much inline skating as I did in 2023. As a result, my thighs didn’t get much work.
Stress is rising
On paper, it was possible: 3 days to cover 500km. With a bit of a climb, but it was doable. I was confident. Until we received the mandatory route covering the second part of the journey. It was 400km long. So, with what I’d planned, it was almost 600km to cover in 3 days… For a moment, I thought about unsubscribing, but if you only take the easy way out, you’ll never learn anything. My brain was even already planning a day with a 4am start. You need to do what it takes to finish in time!
With the briefing in Liège taking place late in the afternoon on Thursday 22 July, I had plenty of time to get there and even have problems with the train. But there were noe with the SNCB for once. On the other hand, Liège is hell! Even worse than Brussels in terms of roadworks and cycling infrastructure! I arrived at the youth hostel to check in fairly quickly, and then the waiting began. The moment I hate the most in any challenge. I meet up with a few people from the Diagonale and we have a quiet chat. The briefing is done quickly. Then it’s time to eat something and settle down in my room. I’d slept 9 hours the night before and had a 1-hour nap before catching the train. Even if I have a bad night before the race, as I’m used to, I’ll be less tired.
Time to go !
Waking up at 4.45am on Friday went well. The watch tells me I’ve slept 7.20 hours, but I have the feeling I’ve only slept 6 hours. At 5.05am, I went into the mess to eat. By 5.30 I’m ready. The stress is rising… my heart races. With the heart rate monitor, I can see that I’m way too high! 160 BPM while sitting on a chair… It’s time to go! The start was grouped, but the rue Pierreuse broke it up quite fast. It may be iconic, but I could have done without it! I’m already out of breath and we barely started. I finish by pushing the bike.
Then I set off for the first mandatory route in Dinant. I opted to do 15 extra kilometres for 300m less D+. So I rode along the Meuse. With a headwind, of course… But I manage to keep my average speed at 19km/h and find a good rhythm for my legs. I use the cadence sensor to adapt my speeds to the wind. It’s the first time I’ve used it so much and I have to admit that I found it practical at the time. I allow myself a 5-minute break after 100km.
The trouble begins
I arrive in Dinant well motivated and hungry. Only to discover that the sandwich shop I was aiming for was closed. And I’m on the wrong side of the Meuse, so I make a diversion to get back to the prescribed route. At least I find a Delhaize and manage to stock up. I packed up the groceries in 15 minutes and was ready to set off again. I’m pleased to see that I’m 1.5 hours ahead of schedule as I start the ascent of Montagne de la Croix. I also finish by pushing the bike and give myself a 20-minute break at the top to eat. Then comes the almost constant gradient up to Bouillon. I don’t do too badly and only put my foot down when the percentage is over 6%.
I was busy finishing a long, boring and dangerous climb when the first pains appeared. To get out of the fast-moving traffic at this motorway exit, I had to push a little harder on the pedals. Suddenly, I feel a sharp pain. It was like being stabbed in the left knee. I don’t often feel pain, but I could feel that one ! I immediately unclip my foot to leave it free, but the pain remains. I take a Nurofen and put on the splint to muzzle the pain and get back on the bike. Not the best idea, you might say, but I’ve only done 108km of this 600km adventure and I can’t see myself giving up. It took 2 hours for the pain to reappear and it didn’t take the same form. It’s back in the form of a less annoying but permanent discomfort.
It’s with this discomfort that I discover a Wallonia that I’ve never seen before, and which is extremely pleasant. I alternate between nice little roads, paths, a Ravel and a pre-Ravel. There were a few unavoidable crossings and passages on the main roads, but everything went well. Of course, I still have a few lorries that go by too fast and too close. But I’m not knocked to the ground by their wind, so I think it’s acceptable.
I’d spotted a small shop in Carlsbourg as the last ravito of the day and I’m disappointed. It’s far less stocked than I’d hoped. I’ll have to make do with a box of ravioli in the evening.
I’m done
The descent to Bouillon is incredible and makes me dread the start of the next day. It’s going to be a very steep climb, I tell myself. I set off along the mandatory route, even though I know that staying at the youth hostel will get me out of it. But that part will already be done. The bad surprise came when I got off the bike at the hostel. My knee gave out under me. Going down the stairs is hell. It’s as if the top of my leg goes through my knee and hits my shin. It’s as if the whole knee doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve just got two sticks to use as a leg. I tell myself there’s a problem. I check in and nearly fall again on the way to the bike park. Once I’m calm in the room, I inspect my knee. It’s not really swollen and it’s not red. I put some Voltaren on it, but I’m starting to think it’s a bit of a mess. I’ll try to carry on, but if my knee’s gone and I’m off work, it also means I can’t work anymore… At the moment, I’m thinking that it’s not practical to have a job that depends on my physical state. So I call on my voice of reason: my boyfriend. His conclusion was clear: keep riding, and probably ruin my knee, just to say I’ve finished, or stop and go and see a doctor? It took me about ten minutes of thinking before I decided to stop.
All right, the decision’s been made. How do I get home? There seem to be a few buses in the area, or else I’ll cycle 12km to the nearest train station. But my boyfriend, who knows the area, tells me that the 12km won’t be easy and that it’s going to be quite a climb. I think back to the magnificent descent to Bouillon and grin, telling myself that if I have to walk up there, it’ll take me hours. Once again, he’s going to have the solution: he’s going to pick me up in his car and together we’ll go to Liège to return the tracker and pick up my bag (with my house keys in it!).
Doctor’s appointment
For once, I managed to get an appointment with my doctor fairly quickly, on the following Wednesday. My knee was still behaving very strangely on Saturday, but much less so on Sunday. The pain faded as the hours went by. When I arrived at my doctor’s, I had no more pain. Which didn’t help him find the problem. So he ordered an echo. Which I managed to do the next day! It revealed calcium in the entheses of my knee. It also revealed unusual wear and tear on the bones in the area due to “overuse”. Well, yeah, I’m a cyclist. Without the calcium, it’s just tendonitis, but because of it, it’s calcifying enthesopatia. Nothing really dramatic. The doctor prescribes 9 to 18 physiotherapy sessions to break down the calcium so that my body absorbs it naturally. I also had to learn muscle-strengthening and stretching exercises.
I managed to get an appointment with the physiotherapist two weeks later, but I heard a completely different story. For her, there was no need for all that. Just exercises and that’s enough. Ha. She even says there’s no point in having another session and shows me the exercises to do. I don’t know who to believe.
At the same time, I decided to have a bike fitting as I was worried that I hadn’t adjusted my cleats properly. It revealed that, but also that my saddle was too high, which meant that my left leg was in full extension. That didn’t help…
In the end, I did 184km in 12hrs 40mins (1hr 39mins break). It was a DNF full of lessons!