Onto stage one.
Sleep was elusive the night before. I think I managed three or four hours at best, still stuck in that rut of not really sleeping. Breakfast was good, prep was fine, and we made the short ride from the apartment over to the park where the race started. On the surface, things felt okay. Even warming up felt, not so bad.
We lined up relatively early, hoping to be in a good position. All of the announcements were in Portuguese — no English — and while we tried using live translation, it mostly produced some pretty strange warnings about death and danger. In the end, we just hoped following the general flow of the day would be enough. Spoiler alert: it was.
The race rolled out through town, and it got sketchy pretty quickly. People fighting for position, cars coming the other direction, and not a lot of room for error. I wasn’t sure what the big rush was, but I also didn’t want to get shuffled too far back, so I pushed a bit. Once we finally hit dirt and the road started pitching up, things settled slightly — still abrupt, still punchy, but fun in that early-race kind of way. Lots of up and down right from the start.
International races are interesting. A lot of riders are extremely strong fitness-wise, but not always the most technical. When things start narrowing down into rougher trail or singletrack, position matters more than you’d think just to avoid getting caught behind someone who’s uncomfortable. We managed that pretty well for the first hour or so, but I could already tell it was costing me more than I wanted.
I tried to keep nutrition going, but somewhere around an hour and forty-five minutes in, the wheels started to come off. We rolled through a small town called Porto de Espada — families out cheering, kids lining the road — which was great. Immediately after that, the course turned to cobbles and pitched up steeply. That climb was pretty much the nail that sent me fully into survival mode. There just wasn’t much left.
As the day went on, it felt like the temperature kept climbing too. The back half of the stage was up into the mid-90s, with a lot of sun exposure. I was completely blown. Heart rate dropped, power disappeared, and I was just trying to keep moving. We still had close to twenty miles left at that point, which is a long way when you’re already empty. Portugal doesn’t mess around with elevation either — the climbs aren’t always long, but a lot of them are steep, and some of them are both.
Wes was patient as I struggled. He apparently loves the heat. At one point he turned to me and said, “Man, I love this shit,” and I’m pretty sure the look I gave him did not confirm that feeling. At one of the aid stations I actually sat down and died a little, which I haven’t done in a long time. The volunteers were great and handed me a big block of ice to stuff down my jersey, which was amazing… until it melted, and then it was less amazing.
We kept getting passed, which was frustrating. Eventually we made it to the finish — much later than I would have hoped, and much more broken. I was honestly pretty disappointed. Wes was riding strong, and I felt like I’d let him down. It was humbling.
That said, the course was tough and genuinely fun. I really enjoy that style of riding, and the people were incredibly friendly. The race was well organized, well supported, and done right. I definitely left the day with a strong reason to come back and try again.
After the finish, they had lunch waiting for us. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was, but I ate it happily, along with a Coke and some kind of dessert that I also couldn’t identify. At that point I wasn’t being picky. We still had day two ahead of us, and I needed to figure out how to not completely fall apart all over again.
