Oslo July 1993. After just missing out on the world hour record, Graeme Obree sets aside his disappointment and physical fatigue and, incredibly, makes a second attempt . . .
My attempts to attack the deficit could not be sustained, and in the last ten minutes, I knew I could do no more, unless a sudden burst of energy came from nowhere. It was so frustrating; I was only a lap or so down, but it might as well have been 100, and I felt the humiliating weight of failure, as I tried my best to the line. It had been a totally lonely and isolated experience. It was my own personal battle with the black line, and the schedule and everyone else was just a blur, as the black line was my total universe. At that time, no past or future existed. All that existed was the need for survival and pace.
When it was over, I was defeated and exhausted, and it was only then that I noticed the audience that had come to see me in action. I was immediately brought in front of the cameras of France 2, where I was asked what I thought about my ride. Throughout every part of my being, I felt like a failure, and I gave the same opinion of my ride. It was pointed out to me that I had broken what would be the sea-level record, also held by Moser, and the French crew tried to give me flowers to celebrate the ride. I instantly could not accept them, as I honestly felt at that moment that I should be flogged at the minimum, and I abjectly hated myself for the disgraceful failure.
At that moment, I saw Old Faithful sitting sidelined and lonely at the side of the track, and something just snapped inside me. I stated that I was going again – on Old Faithful. Everyone round about was incredulous as I went on to say that I would go again that afternoon if necessary. Normally a ride of that intensity would require at least 4 days’ recovery, but at that moment, I felt like a drowning man clutching at straws. Then I was a different man – where I had been a cowering cornered animal, now I was fighting my corner for survival.
It was arranged that I could go the next morning, provided I set off at 9 a.m. on the dot, because the officials had flights to catch. Anne and her mum slipped in at this point, and my wife – who is normally quite reserved – suddenly took control and laid down rules that we would go back to the hotel and keep ourselves to ourselves, and no-one would bother me in any way. She finished with the statement that ‘Graeme needs to do things his own way, and you lot are bossing him about’!
At this point, still dripping in sweat, I stepped back into the discussion my self, with a request that the people-carrier pick up Anne, her mum, me and Old Faithful at the hotel at 8.50. There was a bit of mutter about warming up, and the like, but now I felt really truculent, and insisted that ten minutes to nine would be the perfect time. I already knew exactly what I was going to do, and the three of us executed our plan with a good meal and an early night, which was devoid of psychological talks or anything of the kind. The three of us had total belief that I could take the record, and ‘talking up’ would only have shown an element of doubt.
There was just one thing that could cast doubt on my ability to break the record the next morning, and that was the slight problem of physical exhaustion and muscle fatigue. I knew without a doubt that my tiredness from that afternoon would affect me the next morning to some degree, but when the chips are down, they are down, and I was in no mood for trivialities getting in the way of me getting hold of my record.
I had this angle covered anyhow from previous experience of recovery. I knew that I could not sleep long before my muscles really stiffened up, but I did not want to set the alarm, because it wakes you from a deep sleep with such a start that the overall effect would be exhaustion by the morning. Instead I used the ‘bladder alarm’, which is a technique of drinking loads of water before going to bed. It would only be an hour or two before I would waken in need of the toilet, but before going back to bed, I would do five or ten minutes of deep stretching, have a small bowl of cornflakes for carbohydrate, and another load of water. And so the cycle went, five or six times during the night.
In the morning, I conveniently woke at 8 a.m. from my last bladder cycle. I had my last bowl of cornflakes, shaved and got my skin suit on. I did some stretching exercises in the room, and Ann, her mum, Old Faithful and I caught the 8.50 ride to the velodrome. We arrived just five minutes before the starting time, and I went straight into my new mode of ‘blitzkrieg’. I put on my tracksuits and my shoes at a distance, and I remember striding over to the waiting crowd like Butch Cassidy, before putting on my helmet and going straight up onto the track. I was careful to say almost nothing and to not catch anyone’s eye, as a matter of keeping my momentum. It was now almost 9 a.m., and I was right on time. I did three laps of the track and pulled up to the starter, who grabbed the back of my saddle to steady me at the time. At this moment, I had no sweaty hands, no tightness of breathing and no sense of fear or anxiety. Instead I had a ‘blitzkrieg’, arrogant impatience to ‘bring it on’, and I knew that I would succeed with this mood. What I did not want was the starter to utter the same words that he had done the afternoon before. I was afraid, deep down, about thinking about the greatness of the record or how taking a deep breath to humble myself to it would break through my thin veneer of arrogant aggression and reduce me to a cowering, tired and beaten athlete before the start.
I was having none of it, and just as he was about to speak, I got there first with a loud and clear, ‘Are you ready?’ Now, that is normally the question that the starter asks, and to hear it from the athlete must have taken him aback, but in any case, he instantly replied ‘yes’. Such was my fighting spirit that I attacked from the line there and then, and such was the unexpected nature of my start that I could see the time-keepers fiddling with watches from the first banking, while out of the saddle.
I gave myself four laps to settle into the time-trial-type rhythm with Old Faithful that I could not find the afternoon before. Andy – the schedules guy – had suggested the evening before at dinner that I use a schedule for Moser’s record itself, and I agreed, as it seemed to make good sense. On that schedule, I was up from the start, and I was into a flow that I was gradually building a margin over the record, and the more ground I gained over the record, the more gung-ho I became.
The ride was no easier than before, and it was a full-on effort to maintain my pace and my rhythm. Where it had been a battle against the black line, it was now a battle against myself not to lose my rhythm, as the effort needed to sustain my ride got greater and greater. The vocal support from the team and supporters was greater than it had been the previous day, and a lot of people spread out along the inside of the track so that I could pick out individual voices, hearing their message as I sped around. Anne and her mum stood on the apex of a banking so I could glance at them as well as hear them every time I came round.
By halfway, it felt like hell, as my effort from the previous day started to tell on me. Minutes seemed like hours, and lap after lap, it got harder, like going up a steeper and steeper incline. Many times, I thought about how nice it would be to stop and end the agony. I was up on the record, though, and I would go on and on, no matter what – even if I had to ride to death by exhaustion like a horse – and every lap I thought about the failure. For a little while, I imagined I was that horse, galloping on and on and on to its oblivion.
I was in agony by the last quarter of the ride, my feet, my ankles, genitals, hands, face and scalp had all gone completely numb. Every muscle in my legs was on fire, and I had to think about how each muscle moved individually to keep them pedalling in some sort of rhythm. My eyes were a flickering blur now, though I could still see my line, and my lungs were rasping air in and out like bellows. Still, it was a beautiful feeling to be breaking the record, and when I got the ‘ten minutes to go’ shout, I knew I could hold on, no matter what – I would ride through my misery now to grasp my prize.
Misery it was, but just before my time was up, I heard what was – and always will be – the most beautiful sound in the world. A pistol shot rang out to mark the point where I had completed Moser’s distance, and there and then I was the record-holder. I had an extra half minute or so to add distance to the old record, but in my head I was celebrating already, and I had an official finishing distance of 51.596km.
There was happiness and reconciliation all round, and after a short celebration and a few interviews with those members of the press who had had enough insight to stay, we had to start back for Oslo. My own feelings after the hour record were strangely subdued in relation to how desperate I was to not return home without it, and those that I did feel were ones of relief. I had survived a near catastrophic event, rather than performed one of the greatest turnarounds in sporting history.
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