Crouching on the right edge of the track, the man looks at me. Then he smiles at me. I smile at him, but I think I just make a grimace, or a snort. I look at the GPS screen that shows my speed: five kilometers per hour. I’ve been alone for a long time, pedaling between stones uphill. I look back at the man, who is still smiling, without many teeth to show. Suddenly, he asks me in French “Qu’est ce que tu fais?” (what are you doing?). I could have answered him in different ways, but I chose to cut it short: “L’idiot” (the idiot). She bursts out laughing, gets up, waves and continues down the trail. I am at kilometer 50 of the first stage of the Titan Desert, in Morocco. I have another 50 to go to the finish line and the cramps in my quads have already forced me to walk a few hundred meters with the bike in my hand. This promises. Ahead, five more stages on a crazy journey from the Atlas Mountains to the Erg Chebbi dunes in the desert.
Once again, I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. It seems I’m the only one who isn’t clear. The rest, 460 registered, show fanatical determination and exhibit two types of objectives: compete to the death or finish (be finisher), simply, whatever the cost. It is not the same, although it may seem that way. Finally one overtakes me, when the hill can be seen. He sees me trying to pump my thighs to life with taps. “Gels, man, gels, take all you have,” and he walks away. I have four gels, but I’ve barely tried any in my life. I swallow them all in less than an hour and, little by little, I recover my legs. I think it’s the closest I’ll ever get to doping. The gels work. With 15 minutes left, the cramps hit me again, but I find an unopened gel on the ground. I pounce on it and swallow it. I’m a gel junkie.
The scenario in which we live while the test lasts is the closest thing to a forced labor camp, the desert version of a gulag. Every day, the speakers shake the peace of the haimas where we rest three by three with the hateful song by The Lumineers entitled Ho, hey. But there is something much worse: a motivational speech that makes my hair go crazy before starting the queue routine: queues to go to the bathroom, to get water, to check signatures, to have breakfast, for almost everything. I do all this in a state bordering on depression. What do I do here? Afterwards, they will give the start, they will let us follow a track, we will suffer like dogs, and we will return to the established order of the camp. As I said, a gulag, a Huxley novel.
I understand well with Osvaldo and his son Mauricio, who come from the Argentine Pampas and who explain their objectives to me: the father, to finish the test, since it was only a month ago that he had surgery on his clavicle. The son aspires to be among the top 30, big words because between former road professionals and mountain bike professionals, there are 40 beasts loose around the place. Later we will talk about the brothers Miguel and Prudencio Induráin. My Argentine friends ask me if I have a goal. I look at the classification of the first stage and see that I am 97th. I make up the goal of finishing in the top 100. I will pay dearly for that miscalculation that will turn what could have been a pleasant experience into agony.
I count my gels and I don’t have enough. I need seven a day to be calm. Like a good hooker, I go to the black market and buy more, many more. Time and time again a hilarious text signed by Íñigo Domínguez in EL PAÍS comes to mind after witnessing a surreal Zumba marathon on a cruise ship. The human being, says Íñigo, is capable of anything as long as he doesn’t pick up a book. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m stuck in a Zumba marathon in the desert. The obvious question: Why? I’ve been hearing about the Titan Desert for almost two decades, seeing suggestive images, listening to legends about its terrible toughness and, at this moment, one has led to the other and I want to discover the truth. Is it that hard? Will I be a titan if I finish it? The speeches that the morning public address system sends into the air and into my eardrums assure me that my life will change, that I will be better, that I will know how to discern what is important from what is superfluous, that I will face vital problems with serenity. I even hope that I will grow hair on my head in the near future.
The regulars of the race (yes, there are those who have participated a dozen times) assure that the average level has grown a lot, that more and more prepared cyclists attend, men and women who take the event very personally. But the truth is that there are not many young people, but there are more than 60 people in their sixties, a long hundred people in their fifties and as many people in their forties. Registration costs about 2,000 euros, but it is not expensive if you take into account the enormous logistical and security deployment that the appointment requires. If you wish, you can also hire the services of a mechanic and masseuse: everything to get the most rest. I don’t have one or the other, but from time to time I steal an ice cube from the drinks bucket and massage my thighs gently. Psychologically, it is an important gesture.
In the first 15 kilometers of the second stage and the same until the sixth and last, you leave so fast that your legs howl and your throat is filled with a terrible taste of blood. It is the key moment of the day: the huge peloton explodes into pieces and one must settle into a group that is fast but not too fast. Understanding it almost cost me my health. But when you become part of your group and recognize those of your kind, you only have to worry about not falling, not blowing a tire and, above all, never being left alone. Loneliness means desperation and enormous losses of time incompatible with the goal of being among the top 100. Thus, there are countless careers within the career. Almost all of them in the face of a dog. In the third stage, it seems to me that I have been suffering for hours like an animal behind a single line of 20 units. It’s my group, but they are going in fits and starts and I’m devastated. We reach a water point and everyone jumps on the bottles like sharks. They don’t even get off the bike. I decide that’s enough. Passed. I evacuate looking at the dry, ocher and lunar landscape, and I see Prudencio Induráin next to me, who tells me that he too is standing up. One of his teammates needs him, so I ask them for a place in the car. Prudencio takes away the wind that is blowing sideways, encourages us, and finally returns us to the group.
30 years ago, I was 20 and Miguel Induráin had three Tours, but one day I went out on my bike near Villava and caught up with both brothers on the road. They allowed me to go with them (that day they only let their legs go) and they revealed themselves to me as two endearing, hesitant, happy people… something that was not perceived on television. They are still two gentlemen. The same as several colleagues who have extended their hand to me in the middle of the race.
One of the most famous stages of the test is the one that crosses the dunes of Erg Chebbi. There may not be a more absurd way to try pedaling. Upon entering the dune, the groups explode as if struck by a grenade: all standing on the ground. We pushed the bikes dune up dune down dune for almost four kilometers. It’s not the worst: then we reach a plateau where dirt, stones and sand turn pedaling into an ordeal. The infirmary is filled that afternoon with sores on the butt, neck pain, hands ruined by rattling, and dehydration. The most amazing thing is that no one complains. The stoicism of these people is supernatural. Leaving aside the five or ten who fight to win the Titan Desert (Luis León Sánchez wins), the rest of us beat ourselves up for crumbs, knowing that they are crumbs. It doesn’t matter if you are 77th or 234th. What no one admits is giving up, giving up, resigning. The race is as hard as we want it to be. The problem comes when you believe you need to compete. They put a dorsal on us and something is activated in a certain place in the brain that stretches our capacity for suffering. So that? So as not to have to fill the hours reading. And because we like it.
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