Day 5 // Every Day’s A School Day

Words by Athlyn Cathcart-Keays

Photos by Liz Seabrook and Sam Dugon

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By midnight on Friday, 24 riders had crossed the finish line of the inaugural Lost Dot 101, with Laura Villiger (054) arriving as the final finisher of the day. Since Anna Richter (071) rolled into Córdoba on Wednesday evening, Control Car 1 has remained stationed at Revelociona, the race HQ tucked into the city’s lively streets, watching riders arrive one by one from the road.

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Ultra-distance finish lines are strange places. There’s rarely a visible end, no crowds pressed against barriers, no booming announcer declaring names into a microphone. Riders often arrive in darkness through quiet streets and shuttered shopfronts, rolling towards a handful of volunteers waiting beneath streetlights. By the time many reach the finish, earlier arrivals are already asleep somewhere nearby, their bikes out of sight.

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And yet, over the past few days, the atmosphere here has been anything but empty. Riders who have already finished — and those who scratched — have returned to welcome new arrivals. There have been tears, long hugs, pizzas shared over route files and weather stories, and tired conversations stretching late into the night. Now, the finish line feels less of a destination, and more of a temporary community built by people who understand exactly what it took to get here.

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101 Moments

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As riders begin to process more than 1,200 kilometres of racing across Spain and Portugal, conversations at the finish have repeatedly returned to the same theme: learning. Not just learning how to race, but learning what they were capable of.

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For Ingrid Predota (096), whose husband bought her Lost Dot 101 entry as a birthday present, the race marked her first solo ride longer than a single day. They had always ridden together before this, and her race goal had simply been to finish within the GC cut-off. Instead, she arrived in 10th place overall.

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“This is the first one I cycled alone by myself,” she said, overwhelmed at the finish. “I cycled so many kilometres — I must organise food, hotel, all of that. That’s an amazing feeling, and now I have done it. It’s amazing. Amazing!

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For Susann Heidecke (115), it was realising what it felt like to push your limits — like gaining more than 5,000m total elevation in one day (living in Denmark, this seemed previously impossible). Susann mostly opted to bivvy, including through cold and rain-soaked evenings. “I woke up the first two nights and I actually had rested pretty well”, she told me at the finish line. “Then I heard in the podcast that people majorly suffered during that night or had to get up because they got cold. So I thought, camping is apparently something I know how to do”.

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For the race’s youngest rider, Ida Bircher (120), aged 21, the biggest lesson was more reflective.

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“Feelings and difficult phases pass,” she said. “It’s very important to sometimes push through these, but I also want to do this with some kindness to myself. I think it’s really hard to know when is the moment to stop something, and when it is important to push through and it gets better. I don’t know if you ever learn that completely.”

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Elsewhere, riders learned through mistakes: accidental gravel detours, dead ends, enormous navigational loops, overloaded bikes, roadside mechanicals, and in some cases, routing along illegal roads which resulted in disqualification.

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Improvisation Will Get You To The Finish Line

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One thing the Lost Dot 101 demanded from riders over and over again was resourcefulness. Mechanical issues forced riders to become roadside mechanics, whether they felt prepared or not. Navigation problems demanded quick thinking, and cold weather in the mountains turned ordinary objects into survival equipment.

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On a chilly sunrise descent of Torre, we saw Paula Soler (080) — hood up, head down — barrelling down Portugal's highest mountain in what looked like a very jazzy pair of glittery socks, which up close turned out to be strips of emergency blanket wrapped around her feet for warmth. The day before, Megan Young (022) had been seen huddled in a mountain doorway, wrapping her sleeping mat around her torso before beginning the freezing descent.

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Sari Prieto (093) found company in solitude, and admitted she spent much of the race talking to her bike for company during the long solo stretches between towns. Others became resourceful in more practical senses: at the finish line, Marianne Machner (125) reached into her bib shorts and triumphantly pulled out two colourful washing-up sponges — an improvised solution to worsening saddle sores.

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Perhaps the most memorable story came from Emily bei Cheng (045) who had an enterprising way of navigating when her phone battery was on the blink. 

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“I had like five minutes to think of ideas, got pen and paper and tried to make a map. Shittiest map I’ve ever made. Then I had this other idea. I had a digital camera with me, and I was like, I’m going to take photos of the route before it dies. I thought it was a brilliant idea, but then it was actually just like not detailed enough… life without GPS was really hard”.

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24 Hours To Go

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With the official finish line cut-off set for 23:59CEST on Saturday night, we are nearing the end of the Lost Dot 101. The finishers’ party will kick off early in the evening, and we hope riders still have some energy in their legs for dancing.

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Late Friday night, around 20 riders had passed through CP3 in Guadalupe and were making their way south towards Córdoba, still facing roughly 250KM to the finish. After days of rain, cold mountain descents and limited sleep, spirits further back in the field remain surprisingly high. The pressure of reaching control points is gone for some, and what remains is simply the determination to keep moving forward, while finding joy in the landscape unfurling around them. It is, afterall, their leisure time. Sophie caught up with some of our riders.

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“It's just so beautiful here it's like a tough hard holiday”, said Franziska Schöni (028). “Yeah, like a holiday with less sleep”.

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“Yesterday I was shivering descending down the mountain and today I'm having the best day on the bike in my life”, said Monika Zamojska (066).

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It was Rose Osborne (132) who perhaps summarised the collective condition of the field best: “The legs have left the building, the cheese is off the toast, wheels are off the car, but we’re riding on sweet prayers and saddle sores”.

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Beneath the humour, there are often deeper motivations carrying riders towards Córdoba. Jess Notzing (064) has been battling ongoing stomach issues, but told Sophie she is determined to finish in memory of her grandfather, who died last month and had always loved dot-watching.

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“He was really proud when I did stuff like this”, she said. “I don’t care if I have to poo my entire way across Spain, I’m gonna get to the end… I really want to, for him. I’m really sad he’s not here to watch me do it”.

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Keep turning those pedals. There’s a cold cerveza waiting for you all on the finish line!

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Pairs Update

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By midnight Friday night, we have two pairs still in the running for a GC position on the Lost Dot 101. Pair 146 Jonne Van Bommel and Johanna Drolshagen made it through CP3 at 16:50CEST in good spirits — one favours early morning starts, and the other riding through the night. A great recipe for racing ultras as a pair.

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Pair 145 scratched upon arrival at CP3 in Guadalupe, but Martha Parkinson and Geraldine Nassieu-Maupas (148) passed through half an hour before midnight, and we hope to see them all in Córdoba at some time on Saturday.

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Scratch Report

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145 Shelby Hoglund and Julia Townsend – Scratched at 23:55CEST. No reason given

121 Kristen Song – Scratched at 02:04CEST due to fatigue

094 Sergine Mukendi – Scratched at 08:03CEST. No reason given

001 Manja Borchert – Scratched at 08:43CEST due to health reasons

143 Kirsteen Mcdonald and Macarena Espinar López – Scratched at 08:54CEST. No reason given

035 Fatima Islam – Scratched at 11:03CEST due to mechanicals & timing

141 Cat Dixon and Razzle Marsden – Scratched at 16:02CEST due to mechanical and health

140 Eudiet Trollip and Svenje Duffield – Scratched at 22:38CEST. No reason given

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