My big plan to do one huge day in the Alps before the event was dashed by the weather, so I’ll now never know if I can do even half of the climbing I’m supposed to get done at the Tour du Mont Blanc in 2 short weeks. Instead, I’m just riding locally and doing a few efforts to keep the legs fresh – an early entry into my taper.

The good news is that my weight is still flirting with 69kg. Or maybe that’s bad news, I’m not sure. If I never see sub-70 it’ll mean that I’ve only lost 4 kg since January, which is not anything to shout about, but it’s what happened. My trusty fat calipers tell me that at least that my body composition is changing and I’m now down to 18% body fat, nearly 5% down from the beginning of the year. It takes time these days.

The weight-loss math is not working well this year because I’ve now ridden 320 hours (87% of all of 2023) and have climbed 100,000 meters (104% of last year) and we’re only 6 months into the year. I won’t try and add up the beers I’ve drunk, but still, I was hoping for better results.

Until pretty recently I was not sure that I’d even show up to TMB – I don’t like to start things that I can’t finish – but I’ve turned that corner and am feeling that there might possibly just be a chance that I can get through it. I’m actually afraid of this one, which is a real rarity for me. I’m feeling the pressure I’ve piled onto myself and I know from experience how much a potential Col Too Far could hurt. I am fully expecting that doubts will start on the 4th col of the day; the Col du Grand Saint Bernard, a 40km monster-slog that only gets me into Italy (from Switzerland). I’ll try and hold the doubts off till its little sister (Petit Saint Bernard) that climbs back into France. Around here I’ll still have 175 km to ride and 4000 m to climb, so any doubts that manage to creep in will have loads of time to develop into full-blown fear.

From Bourg Saint Maurice (my first serious cut-off point: 8pm), in France, I still have to climb the Cormet de Roselend (2nd cut-off: 10:30pm) and the Col des Saisies if I want to get the coveted finisher’s medal.

And we haven’t even talked about the legs. It’s going to be interesting to see how much pain I can pedal through. I’ve done my share in the past in different types of events, but as I get older I get less interested in suffering (possibly a reason my weight hasn’t come down very much). I need to turn all that off on July 13th, I realize, and work my way through as much suffering as I’ve ever experienced (or so say the people who’ve done this event). This realization adds to my fear, obviously.

But in the end, all this worry about fear and suffering is a very First World problem. I’m not living in a trench in Ukraine or a tent in the Gaza Strip and my biggest worry is having to ride to the finish in a van. It’s not overly serious, but somehow it still is.