PBP Update: James has returned

Shortly before 2pm, while sitting in the restaurant with Ashley and Caitlin eating our lunch, I heard clapping in the lobby and looked up to see James enter the hotel (I’d strategically sat in a spot where I could easily see the door of the lobby.) The girls and I quickly dashed out to meet him.  He looked tired and drained and yet we discovered that he had in fact cycled back from St Quentin via the Gymnase to watch some of the cyclists finishing the ride.

He showered, shaved, ate some food and then stretched out on the bed, all the while we discussed some aspects of the ride, what had happened that led him to abandon it and the events of his journey home. I’ll leave all the details for another time when I can put it more coherently together. In a nutshell he had woke up after an hour of sleep at Ludeac his entire body shaking and shivering. He reckons he was hypothermic. He felt like moving on to the next control and so got back on his bike and rode to Tinteniac, which was 85k further on. He reached there okay (and remember that okay here is used in the relative sense given his condition!). At that control he felt he could make it to Fougere, another 55k. He realized 30k away from Fougeres that he was not going to be able to finish. He was extremely nauseous but kept it together knowing that making the return journey would be a lot easier if he dropped out at the control than along the side of the ride in the countryside between towns.

A volunteer at the medical tent was extremely helpful and booked hotel rooms for him and a few other guys who had also abandoned the ride. The hotel was in Vitres, the town 33k away where they would be able to start the train journey back to Paris. She also arranged the taxis to take them an their bikes to the hotel.

Ashley, Caitlin and I are so glad to have him back. Caitlin repeatedly says to him, “I’m sorry that you’re sick Daddy”. I helped unpack all of James’ gear from his drop bag because, believe me, we did not want that odorous bag just sitting around. We had a lot of fun deciding which of his things smelled the worst: his clothes, his cycling shoes, his plastic pouch that contained his control cards that he wore close to his body the entire time, or his gloves. It was a close call but the gloves won and were thrown away along with the plastic pouch. Yuck.

He’s been resting all evening and finding going to sleep and staying asleep a bit challenging. He’s managed to eat dinner but has taken medication to ease the touch of nausea, which recurred afterwards. He’s also had a lot of caffeine pills in his system from the last stage of the ride, which impacted his ability to sleep at Vitres. We imagine they should be almost out of his system by now but want to investigate caffeine poisoning when things settle down.

For now he’s looking well, his mood is good and he’s home with us. Hopefully we’ll all get a decent night’s sleep tonight. My apologies to all of you who have been concerned that I wasn't able to get this information to you any sooner. As you can imagine it's been a busy day settling James back in and trying to manage two very excited girls to allow James to rest. Thanks to all of you for your comments, emails and phonecalls. I feel truly supported by my loving family and friends.