Stage seven: breathtaking heat

South Africa, March 31, 2007

Day 7 is over. I could sum up my day like this: good start, beautiful course, the best so far but also one of the hardest.

We are in Kleinmond. It's a very nice setting. The camp is by the sea and I got a swim in the lagoon at the finish and I had a swim in the sea after I had my shower but I am feeling weak as it's really really hot. It was about 40 degrees C during the last section - which lasted 20km.

Fabienne and I used the same strategy as the last days: trying to get in the single tracks before to others ladies. We managed to do it again today and that was a good thing as it would have been hard to catch up the others once we hit it.

Everything went well until the last water station. The heat was breathtaking. That's when we switched to kind of a survival mode. We didn't drink enough and we got slower and slower. As a result we could caught again by the Danish sisters in the last 5 km. This was really frustrating even more because at this stage Fabienne was really feeling dizzy. We managed to keep the 3rd place but we were just 2 min ahead of the Rotwild. The good news is that we haven't lost any real time in the overall and are still in 2nd place. I am a little bit worried about Fabienne; she is totally dehydrated.

Tomorrow it's the last stage. I can't believe it. It has been really hard and it will be hard again. It's a weird feeling as everything has started to slow down. Like the media centre is really quiet but it used to be so busy. It's soon time for the last dinner and I think we are all looking forward to the finish now. The racers, the journalists and all the volunteers, we all look quite tired I can tell you.

I haven't done anything in terms of organization because - another piece of good news - we start late at 8.30am. I have good and bad feelings about the sleep in because the heat will be out there again. So we will see, I will be totally relax and happy only when the race will be over. Check up results tomorrow afternoon.

I will get back to you later on, you will not hear from me for a couple of days. Then you will learn how I recover here in South Africa. Please keep your fingers crossed it's almost over but not quite yet we need your support. Send us positive energy so that we recover well tonight.

Talk to you soon,

Myriam

myriamwww.myriamsaugy.ch (personal website)
www.team-vtt-texner.ch (team website)