The Raid Alpine – Day 6

Col du Lautaret to Guillestre. Distance 81km. Elevation 1392m.

What a fantastic day! Today we ‘bagged’ Col d’Izoard. 19.1km uphill during which we climbed 1173m. At a peak gradient of 11% and an overall average of 6%, it was tough. No nice pictures at the top as it simply resembled a building site.

A huge sense of achievement though. I knew from the outset again that I would do every km of today’s challenge. (Day 3 and Day 5, I haven’t managed all of and I will write about these as soon as time permits). My legs no longer felt like treacle. They were strong and powerful taking me up the slopes with relative ‘ease’. If you can accept that nothing about today was actually easy!

I kept up with the others, enjoyed the camaraderie, the support, the encouragement we gave each other and before we knew it, we had reached the peak! Coming down for me was much harder, I think due to the vertigo inducing sheer drops from the edge of the road, rather than anything Parkinson’s related. Slowly but surely, behind the others, all of us completing today’s challenge.