Hard Way Back – B-HARD, Bosnia – Ultra Cycling Race Documentary

Hey all,

Well, it’s been a hectic year… This has taken a very long time to make, I’ve spent weeks editing this and I wanted it to be perfect, I’d say I got quite close to what I wanted.

This is the full experience of an ultra bikepacking race through Bosnia.

My only reservation; I’ll never be able to sum this up in one hour of video, The effort the race took, the training needed, and the beauty of Bosnia itself. That said, I hope you enjoy watching the film, if you have and questions or anything then comment, you know I always get back to everyone.

and… what do you reckon, was it the cow poop sprayed from the road that almost took me out?

This ride – https://www.strava.com/activities/14880977995
Insta – https://www.instagram.com/andyc_trp/
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🍏🍌🍓 Nutrition
Veloforte 20% discount! – ANDYCO20
https://veloforte.com/ANDYC20
Why Veloforte – https://youtu.be/OcOS6d9OhuY
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🚴💨 Coaching
Coach Giovanni Video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIacLXCJ_yo
https://www.gprocoaching.com

I’ve just been on a really busy transit stretch from the checkpoint to here crying the whole way. Haven’t been this broken for a really long time and I can’t sorry I can’t not make it. The amount of training I’ve done, I’ve got to make it to the end. If I grind my ass to a paste, I’m going to try to make it. And then when I rolled down the hill, not far down the hill, there was a warning sign for minefield. Not the best place to sleep. Trying to get to the next control. I don’t know what I’m going to do at that control to try to get me from that control to the last one. Let’s get there first. I’m not feeling very good right now. It’s getting pretty brutal and I’m not sure how much more I can take of it if I’m completely honest. Can you tell me what brings you to when you look at today? I I entered the transcontinental race last year. This was where I really wanted to get to and I made it as far as Munich. My right knee was twice the size of my left knee. So, I had no choice but to quit before the Alps. So, I can fly here and come straight straight here. What discipline did you choose? I had the race full distance race. What made you choose the full distance the the maximum distance challenge? And I wanted the full the full experience and I’ve already been chased by a dog on my first day. So dog in the Balkans, I think it’s easing me in gently. It’s fine. They’re sweet. They just want to come. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. It was quite fun actually. Uh how long do you think it will take you to finish the race? I have no idea is a short answer. Is there a particular place you look uh you look forward to seeing in Bosnia? I saw a really beautiful waterfall shared on Facebook. I don’t know the name of it, but I asked Nikisha when he was there. I really hope that’s in the room and it is. Thank you very much. Did you really like go after it in Bihard? You have no choice really. So, Bihard is a 1200 km unsupported bike packing race. It’s around the whole country of Bosnia. You cover some really amazing, beautiful terrain, really hilly terrain. And the first seven checkpoints are known as the B. And after that it gets hard. And that’s something like the first seven or 800k. After checkpoint 7, it’s mountain pass after mountain pass, ski resort. After ski resort, 17,000 m um in the final in the whole race. Sorry, in the whole race. Um and you have three and a half days. So you don’t really have any option option to rest or slow down. It’s a short race. It’s the time aspect that really drives it difficult for your hearts. Be hard felt like utter survival. Wow. So, I had one day where it was pretty um good going. Had good fun. Really good fun. Beautiful country. Second day really sick. I felt really sick the whole way. I just felt sick. Throwing up. I don’t know what caused it. I think maybe the heat because I remember you saying how hot it was. Yeah. 40 plus degrees. 43°. Wow. It was really sick. Um and then going into the third day, for some reason I got, you know, sickness went elsewhere. I was Yeah. Yeah. Um I was destroyed and then got to um checkpoint eight or nine and I could barely walk and stand up and push the bike, let alone ride it. So it was brutal. On day one, the race started at 5 a.m. So, I had an alarm set for 3:00 a.m. I had yesterday’s pastry at 3:30, which did not go down very well. Not at 3:30 in the morning. From there we are diamond stand for the Are you ready? You didn’t get any sleep. Let me ask you. Are you ready to be hard? Captain Good luck. Heat. Heat. And we are off. That was exciting. A really cool start to the race. the neutralized start from the center of Baluca out to an industrial estate and straight onto this busy road and we got about 50k to the first checkpoint. But it’s relatively flat until a 12 km climb up to CP1. Everybody’s gone out quite quickly. I’m panting a bit trying to talk to the camera. So, I’m going to go a little bit harder than I planned, but not too much. I really don’t want to injure myself, cause myself some kind of mischief later, but at the same time, it’s pretty cool this morning. Feels like maybe like 10°. So, I actually kind of want to make the most of this cool weather, too. But I am excited. This is going to be a great great adventure. This is the first proper climb on the course now. So, uh 30 odd K along that busy road. And now I think it’s a 12 km climb up to Kazara National Park. I believe it’s a World War II monument. Uh quite a steady climb at the moment. The graph does look red in a while. And that looks a little bit Yeah. This is really a beautiful climb. I’ve got about 6 km left and grade of 8% average for the last 6k. It’s not too bad. It’s just beautiful. I really wasn’t expecting the terrain to be so alpine. It feels like I’m climbing through California or French Alps or so nice. And I think this whole climb I’ve seen maybe one car. Gorgeous. Good. Yeah. How did it go? Good climb. Good climb. Like uh it feels like being in the Alps. It’s very It’s much more alpine than I expected. Reminds me of uh four or five fountains all the way up. Are you tired? Uh yeah. Um, you know, for for a climb I paced it, but tired. As tired as I should be. It’s only 7:30. That’s checkpoint one done. Quite a fast start. Pretty quick on that busy road and then a really steady climb all the way up to 12k. But it went pretty quickly. So now got my card stamped, got some food, some water, and the organizers giving me an extra camera. So, I’ve got three cameras to work now and then I think it’s about 118k to the second checkpoint. So, I’m going to get moving now. Let’s go. Heat. Heat. Well, we are 130 km in now. So less than 1100 km left of the whole route. And to be fair, it’s the easy end of the course. So I’m not going to get too energetic about the pace. But how is it going? Wow. Honestly, wow. I’ve been smiling the whole way. It’s just amazing this place. I really would never have thought this kind of terrain would have existed so close. I’m pretty lucky that I’ve been able to travel to some pretty amazing places. Places that when you walk into them, you’re just kind of staggered with how amazing they are. And this is definitely on the list. And I’ve only been through 130k. I’m pretty sure I’ve got all the good stuff to come yet. I’m feeling so excited about the rest of this race. This is my kind of environment. I feel like I can probably push through the night tonight. I’m just excited to get through this course. But let’s see. The first impressions absolutely stunning. But right now it is almost midday on the first day and the temperature is just creeping up. 30° C. So, it is getting warm. The heat here, for whatever reason, just feels really manageable. I’m not sure why. When you’re moving, doesn’t feel too bad. Sweating a lot. And we’ve done a couple of 10 km or so climbs so far. And it’s only really on the exposed really steep climbs that it’s quite a challenge. But actually, so far, it’s felt all right. Let’s see if I’m still saying that in a couple of days. Heat. Heat. Just the person I was waiting for for like an hour. So, how are you doing so far? All right. Much better. Much better. Yeah. I stopped for some coffee. Like an iced coffee. I felt pretty good after that. Going pretty well. But it’s amazing route. CP1, CP2. It just felt like going through different countries. Almost like a bit of Italy. Almost like California in some places. Forest. Are you happy with your time? Um I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is. Well, uh there’s a lot of people ahead of you. I don’t know how else to put it, but um I’m not a natural bike racer. No. Uh I came to this about six years ago roughly. All of my childhood never did any sports. Hated sports to be completely honest. I left school. I was a smoker, drinking, really overweight, unhappy, and got a job in sales. I was driving something like 50,000 miles a year, stuck in traffic all the time and hated it. So I thought one day I’m going to buy a bike and I’ll start riding to my new job and really enjoyed that. So then I thought one day there’s a hill outside Portsouth called Portstown Hill. I’ll try to ride to the top of that hill and in my overweight unfit state I did it and was really pleased with myself. So then I thought let’s ride to Southampton the next town. Then let’s ride to London. And I started to get a real bug for long-distance riding. And I thought around the same sort of time, maybe one day I could take on those ultradistance races I’ve seen online. Not anytime soon, but maybe one day. I joined a cycling club. I started making friends, really enjoying riding my bike, losing a bit of weight, getting a bit healthier and fitter, feeling really good about it. And I bought my dream bike, Canyon Airroad. And I took it out for a good ride on my birthday. And as I was coming back into Portsmouth, bang, I was hit by a car. And it was quite bad to be honest. So on my birthday, rather than going out for dinner, I was having my face stitched up at 1:00 a.m. I started to recover from that accident. And then about 6 months later, was hit by a second car. So by that point, I was starting to think maybe this isn’t for me. So I started healing and doing the physio. And it took about 2 years to be fully recovered from both of those accidents. I still have some issues now. I still had that knowing feeling in my stomach that I wanted to go on adventures. So I thought I’m going to ride London Edible London and Paris Press Paris. If I get through those events then maybe I can take on some races and I finished them both. After le my hands were pretty battered, my killies were wrecked but then got through PBP with no real issues whatsoever. So after that I booked on to All Points North in the UK and the transcontinental race across Europe and I scratched at both of them. Psychologically at All Points North in the rain and the cold I couldn’t hack it. And at the transcontinental race I had some injuries and only got to the Alps. So after that I started to really think maybe this isn’t for me. Psychologically I can’t handle it. I’m injuryprone. Been hit by two cars. But then out of the blue, I was contacted by Javanni. He’s my coach now, and he said that he might be able to help me achieve my goals. So, we sat down and put a bit of a plan together for training. I carved out 20 hours per week for training, more than I ever have before. And I trained every day. I trained Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, every single day for 200 days in a row before getting to this event. So, when I roll into checkpoint two feeling like I’m pacing it pretty well, the strongest I’ve ever fell and I’m still at the back and another one is slipping through my fingers. It was pretty soul destroying. Are you going to try catching up to them or uh Heat. Heat. Look at these flies and all the way up this climb. It’s all over me. It’s just brutal. I don’t know what’s going on. You know what they say, sometimes you find motivation. And sometimes motivation finds you. Oh. How you doing? That is CP3 done out of the way. And I’m on a slowly downhill now, which looks like we’re going slowly downhill for quite a while. I think kind of rolling down towards Mosha which is I think towards the most sly point we go on this route. Covered quite a lot today but uh it’s going to get a lot slower. But I I had a little pep talk from the media team at CP2 and he said uh there’s quite a lot of people ahead of you. Put it that way. So I checked and I was 43rd. So I decided to knuckle down and push on to CP3 and I just got there and checked and when I was at CP3 I was 34th. So in that stretch I made nine places. It’s pretty brutal to be honest. Through the hottest part of the day we got a lot of climbing coming later but there was quite a lot of climbing in that section. Our first taste of long steepish climbs. So, I just need to chug along now on this slightly downhill section and see what I can do. Let’s go. Oh no. Oh dear. That was poo poo. Hello. Welcome to checkpoint 4. What took you so long? It’s horrible. I felt really sick the whole way. I did well checkpoint two to three. I made up about nine places and then I think three to four I just lost them all again. I just felt sick. I don’t know what it was. I felt like I needed to I couldn’t eat but I felt better on the way down the temple. So, let’s see. Sandwich and maybe a sleepsuit. Was the route tough? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah. A little bit unnerving. This isn’t hard, but still. What’s your plan for tonight? Are you staying or going further? I can go further, but sleep maybe sleep in about 2 hours, 2 3 hours. Unless I feel better. If I eat and I feel better, then I might carry on. But I just feel queasy. Oh. Oh, yes. Do you want coffee? Yeah, please. With sugar or without? Oh, that was nice. The team here are so lovely. I’ll be honest. I can’t remember if I talked about it already, but that last section I was feeling really sick. Really sick and not feeling good whatsoever. I just wanted real food. and they gave me a sandwich and some coffee and chat for a bit and I feel a million times better. I just sat and researched somewhere to sleep and found a couple of car showrooms quite close by. I’m feeling pretty good now, so I’m not sure. I’ll see how I feel when I get there. Can I get through without needing to sleep? I’ll have a think. But because of the timing of this, this is really an ideal place to sleep. Although, I am feeling pretty awake now. I’m not sure if it’s worth starting that dodgy looking section now or waiting until the morning. Let’s see. Well, it looks like we’re riding on for a bit. I’m feeling pretty good. I’ve had some coffee. I’ve got supplies with me. And this section of the ride is marked in the manual as being intimidating at night, but I know it’s exposed and there’s no resupply and it’s very hot in this part of Bosnia. So, sometimes you get these waves of energy and you just got to ride them. So, let’s see what happens. But I do know I’m seeing it through because I’ve seen two pretty big snakes on the floor. And I had some advice. Don’t sleep in stony areas because that’s where the snakes tend to be. So, I’m going to ride through and then see what I get at the other end. But right now, I feel like I can ride for quite a while. So, let’s do it. Good morning. It’s about half past 5. I slept in the end at about 2:00. I just got closer and closer to the section with nothing on it and just started to feel a little bit sleepy. So, I thought I’ll get some sleep this end. I just found some real food. The first proper real savory food in so long. Just some hot dogs in quite nice to be honest. But just all I’ve had is like sweet biscuits and kind of junk food from garages and things. The actual bakeries are really actually quite few and far between. I think I’m really struggling for food. So I’m going to eat these and then wake up a little bit. But I’ve had a couple of iced coffees as well. They do the trick, but I haven’t woken up yet. They really don’t mess around out here. I’m on uh the Churro, and it’s the second of the biggest sections with zero resupply. Really exposed. Not seeing any water either, which is great. I’ve got plenty of food. So hopefully there’s some water somewhere along here. I think I’m about maybe maybe 30 30 40k left, something like that. Uh it’s really beautiful. I think it used to be a train line and now it’s a scenic route, but it’s a long way to go with no water. Sorry. That is Travin. It cannot come a moment too soon. That was a pretty brutal section. All I want to do is get in some shade to get out of the sun, but there’s just no no cover anywhere. The only option I got is to pedal harder to get to the control quicker. It is brutal out here. Temperature is getting crazy. I want to climb out of Chibin. I’ve taken my base layer as a a cover for my neck and my ears and it’s doing a good job of keeping the sun off of me and reflecting it away. The temperature of my garment is more than 42 Celsius. This is unbelievably hot. I just wish there was a bit more opportunity for shade. Maybe a few more shops of ice cream. Heat. Heat. N. I’m on the final climb of this stretch. It’s 8 km long. I really just want some food. It’s mad how long the sections are with such little resupply options. Kill for a pizza right now. I’ve just eaten hardly anything today and ridden so many meters of elevation. Hey, people are friendly though. If only he was a pizza delivery guy. Wow, I was not expecting that. What a reveal. I just came out of a a second tunnel, a shorter one than the massive one, and it just opened out to the biggest, gnarliest looking mountain I’ve seen for a long time. Massive. This place is so cool. I feel so much better now being back in the lush, forested, waterfilled side of Bosnia. A really cool place, but difficult to survive. Now on to checkpoint six, which I believe is a restaurant. So if they haven’t got food, then I’m really screwed. Let’s see. All right, that is checkpoint six done. And that was a good checkpoint coming out of that national park. So beautiful. And the checkpoint was a restaurant. And did they have food? Yes, they had food. So, now on to checkpoint seven, which is actually the halfway point because there’s so much elevation at the end. So, now I’ve got a belly full of French fries, pancakes, my little fly buddies are back, so let’s go. Good morning. It is day three and this is officially the start of the hard section. Everything up until checkpoint 7 they say is the B and then everything after checkpoint 7 is hard. So now it’s mountain pass after mountain pass. So to get some pastry in me some iced coffee from the fridge. Starting to get some saddle discomfort which is a bit annoying on the way back in yesterday. It’s the heat, unfortunately, sweat in the bibs. But hopefully I can manage that and it won’t get too painful. But it was getting pretty sore. But first up, I think there’s a short 5k climb and then about 70k until the biggest climb on the whole route in probably in the next few hours. So, let’s see how that goes. Oo. Hey. Hey. I’m on to the big stuff now. I’m on a climb called Yaharina. which goes up and over the mountains to Sar Evo and it’s the biggest highest uh toughest climb on the whole route. I think I think I read somewhere it was like 50 hairpins but we’ll see. But luckily there’s some cloud cover. Yesterday was absolutely brutal. So thankfully there’s some cloud today. I’ve had stomach issues. quite bad stomach issues for the last few hours. So, having to stop every sort of half an hour, 40 minutes to go to a cafe or whatever and sort that out. So, hopefully that’s going to be on its way out soon. I really hope. Let’s get climbing. Thank God for that. I’m not sure if I’m missing things, but there are meant to be fountains all the way up these climbs. That’s the first one I’ve seen and it was about 15k up, which takes a long time. And I am thirsty. It’s 35°. So, I think it’s about 10k left for this section. Then it flattens off with sort of false flat and then another 17 climb, 17k climb to the very top. It’s quite a long way up. There’s plenty of fountains. It’s hot. Oh, my stomach is really not good for some reason. Really sick. And uh yeah, I really need to look the toilet. What’s going on? I think it’s the heat. The heat yesterday. I felt sick all day yesterday and then today just need the toilet every half an hour. It’s draining me. Completely draining me. At least I’m finding water and I got some bananas. So 30k to the next checkpoint. A lot of it’s climbing. Oh, I can just make it there and sort myself out. I’m not feeling very good right now. It’s getting pretty brutal and I’m not sure how much more I can take of it if I’m completely honest. I think it’s the the heat is just messing me up pretty bad. See if I was sick yesterday and today stomach issues. I’ll be completely honest with you. Had a couple of accidents and had to get the wet waves out and sort myself out. I think that is not helping the hydration. Feeling really rough. And now we’re on a climb that’s 18 km long. The flies are back. 18 km long. And apparently there’s no water anywhere on it. It’s 36° right now. 36°. 18 km up to a ski resort. I’m dying. Not literally. I’m getting the scratchy scratchy feels. Let’s see. I think I just received a sign. No, let’s keep on going. That’s the point I decided I was going to quit. Actually, Yaharina was really tough. I spent hours pushing my bike up, walking, riding, swatting flies with branches, and the flies were just driving me insane at this point. I’ve been dehydrated and sick for so long that I just spent 2 hours justifying to myself why quitting is okay. I’ve scratched over much less in the past. So, I decided I’ll get to the mountaintop. I’ll roll into Sievo and then I’ll find my way home from there. But what happened was at the top of the mountain, I bumped into two riders who I’d been kind of leaprogging with for a little while. And they said to me, “Why don’t you just come to the restaurant, have some food, and see how you feel afterwards?” And I’d already messaged Nick at this point, the organizer, to say, “I’m scratching. I can’t do it.” But as I sat, ate some food, and recovered a little bit, I started to think to myself, well, I don’t think I can get to the finish of this race. But maybe I can roll into Sievo, find some supplies, and then maybe I’ve got one more checkpoint in me. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hello. I don’t know if you can see me with the torch, but I did decide to push on and a pep talk in the control. and I’m moving. But got to the point I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It’s half past 2 in the morning and I was looking for a decent spot. I found a little shop that has um a little awning. I was a bit worried. They kind of look like someone’s house as well. It’s a shop. So, I don’t really want to mess with that. So, instead I am here. Not really that keen with snakes and stuff like that, but I can’t keep my eyes open, so I got no choice. Good night. Good morning. Welcome to day four of whatever this is. I’m on the final climb to get to the second to last control point, control point 9. and I bivvied the side of the road. Had two and a half hours sleep and got up pretty quickly. The second I took my head out my baby bag, I was just mobbed by the flies again in my ears and my nose. Just pack myself up as fast as I can get out of there. And then when I rolled down the hill, not far down the hill, there was a warning sign for minefield. So, not the best place to sleep, but I’m sure where I was is probably okay. I’m just going to keep my eyes open. And now I’m just basically doom marching, doom marching my way up this climb, trying to get to the next control. I don’t know what I’m going to do there. I don’t know what I’m going to do at that control to try to get me from that control to the last one. But let’s get there first. During Be Hard, what was the hardest moment? I had to get to the next checkpoint because there’s nothing between me and and the checkpoint. So, I was pushing my bike up and over. Um, it was just the hard one of the hardest points on a bike I’ve ever had. But, I made it to the checkpoint and ate all of my food, everything. I had really strong coffee. So, that’s checkpoint nine. The volunteers, they got away with words in Bosnia. They said, “What took you so long? like have you had a mechanical or something like that? Said no, I just been sick for three days. Um so I asked him people in the this checkpoint right now, do you think they’re going to make it to the finish in the cutoff? And she said probably not at this at this point. So I was a bit a bit gutted, but I thought I’m going to go for it. And then the section of road after that checkpoint, I just broke down and cried. And I was just pouring with tears for about 45 minutes thinking like I can’t not finish this race. And I said to myself, I’m going to push myself as hard as I can. I’ve had issues with my knees in the past. I’m just going to injure myself lightly. Give myself some tendinitis. Maybe I’ve got to get over those mountains and just make make it at all costs. I’m out of checkpoint 9 and I think I think I’m going to do it. I had a couple of strong coffees and ate all the food I have and spoke to the lovely team again and I feel like I can go. But we’ll see. I don’t really have a lot of choice to be honest. And I think between here and I’ve got to do it. But that’s the checkpoint and after that it’s all downhill pretty much to Buca. I’ve just been on a really busy transit stretch from the checkpoint to here. Really busy and just been crying the whole way. I just in a pit of motion at the moment. I just haven’t been this broken for a really long time and I can’t sorry I can’t not make it. The amount of training I’ve done and not seen people and I’ve got to make it to the end. I did not intend to cry for the camera but I can’t stop. I’m almost into the mountains now and it’s basically two big mountain passes and that’s most of the effort left and then after that rolling down to Baluca and if I grind my ass to a pace I’m going to try to make it. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I’m not sure if it’s just the event. It’s really tough or being ill for two days just reduced me to a bit of a mess. I don’t know if I’m going to make it inside of the time cut right now, but that doesn’t really matter at the moment. That’s 11:00 p.m. I’d like to get there before that, but I just want to get there. Wish me luck. Oo. Oh, oh. All right, there’s one climb down. That was 19k that one. And the one I’m on now, just starting is 17k. So then once I’ve done that one, I’ll be pretty much on to the final climb, final main climb of the whole thing, which is to visage I think a ski uh resort. Um that’s the final checkpoint. So I’m just trying to push on energy wise. I’m a little bit better because I think the weather’s turned all English. Uh, so, um, not fantastic, but a lot better. Um, so I’m going to push on now. Let’s see if, uh, we can make this time cut. Look at this. And finally onto the final mountain pass. And down there is Travnik. And that way Vage Ski Resort and I really didn’t think I’d make it this far. I really did not think I was going to do it. But it’s a bit of a spicy climb at 15k at about 8% I think. But there’s no turning back now. And once I get over this, it’s basically all downhill. Mostly Spanuluca. I am tired. Let’s do it. 10k in now and 10k up the climb. I got five 5k left. There’s not a lot I’ve let up on this climb, but I’m managing to keep the pace and try not to stop. Nearly there. And also, it looks like we’re about to go into the clouds. Maybe that’ll be cool. I’m pretty sure that’s trapnik down there. That is pretty cool. It’s okay to go. 2 km to go. Almost there. We’re into the clouds now. It’s pretty cool. 200 m to go. Oh yes. Well, the final insult. Oh, it’s freezing. It’s quite cool being up in the clouds, but uh I’m over it now. It’s taking a while to descend out of them as well. And that’s all the controls done. I’m just now heading back to the finish cuz you got to go from checkpoint 10 back to the finish of Buluka. And this road is torture. I heard the phrase like pack patchwork quilt. Literally a patchwork quilt. You made it. Thank you. Congratulations. and you finished within the time limit as well. Just yeah all the support. So happy. Thank you. Have you had? Yes. Extremely hard. But you also were planning to stretch maybe a CPA and before that you were feeling ill. Didn’t know what to do. I was lucky. Really lucky. I didn’t think I was going to recover. It was amazing. This was brutal. But were every worth every kilometer out times processing. Yeah, it was amazing. But he came here, you know, with his mind set on finishing. So yeah, it somehow captures the spirit of V card and that’s Andrew Connelly from United Kingdom. I believe the correct term is you were 99% quitting but 100% finishing, you know. Yeah, you finished. Congratulations. Crossing that finish line felt just astonishing to me. Finishing this race was everything. And I never did injure myself either, which was amazing really, considering how hard I had to push to get over all those mountains to make it in time. I really thought I’d be injured. And I just put that down to the amount of training I did in the leadup to this event and crossing all those mountains. I couldn’t help but think about that all the work I put in over the months leading up to Beh. But also climbing that hill, Portown Hill all those years ago. The amount of effort it took me to climb one mile up my local hill and then suddenly I find myself in the wilds Bosnia climbing mountain after mountain after mountain. In some ways, it kind of felt like the end of a long story, but the reality is I’ve got about 3 weeks to recover after behard and then I’m racing 4,000 km across Europe. Enjoy ride, Andy. Let’s get this over with.