How to survive the Tour de France, according to its last-place rider

The Tour de France is annually one the most difficult events in sports, but the 2018 edition has been particularly tough. On Friday, 152 riders took the start of Stage 13, which was the fewest riders by that stage since 2000. Stage 12 was particularly harsh: A slew of sprinters were eliminated from the race after they failed to make the time cut for the finish at Alpe d’Huez.

Lawson Craddock was, fortunately, one of those 152 survivors. The 26-year-old American broke his scapula in a hard crash on the very first stage of the Tour. With a bloodied face and a tattered kit, he was able to finish the day, and the 12 stages since, though he is frequently the last rider over the line.

There has been a silver lining to Craddock’s crash, though. His ability to grit his teeth and wince his way through stage after stage has created global attention for a good cause. After the crash, Craddock started a GoFundMe in support of the Greater Houston Cycling Foundation and the Alkek Velodrome, where he raced when he was younger. As of Friday, the GoFundMe has raised more than $113,000.

Though he still sits in dead last place on the general classification — two hours, 36 minutes, and 36 seconds out of first place — Craddock has been riding better and better through the pain, even on brutal terrain like the cobblestones of Stage 9, and three straight days of steep Alpine mountain climbs.

I spoke to Craddock on the Tour de France’s first rest day — one day after the cobbles stage — courtesy of WHOOP, a biometric data company that Craddock has partnered with to publicly share his riding and recovery data as he races the Tour. We talked about how to survive the world’s most grueling race — both physically and mentally, and especially when every goal you had is suddenly gone.

If you could rank what’s sore, or what hurts the most, from one to five starting with what hurts the most, what would be the five things?

Lawson Craddock: No. 1 is definitely the injury itself. But even then, the fracture itself isn’t as painful as it was a week ago. Right now, I’ve spent nine days racing at the absolute highest level of cycling that you can and I’ve been compensating differently on the bike. So now all the muscles surround my shoulder and my pecs are definitely feeling that. Especially after yesterday’s stage over the cobbles. The [chiropractor] and the doctor called it DOMs [delayed onset muscle soreness], basically the equivalent of doing a thousand pushups and pullups at the gym.

So right now that’s kind of the most painful thing. It kept me up quite a bit last night.

No. 2 is the shoulder. Then I don’t know, can you put the whole body in at No. 3? [Laughs]. Right now those are kind of the biggest concerns. And then of course you have the pain in the legs from the toll that you’ve put yourself in over the last nine days. So I’d say my left and right legs are Nos. 4 and 5.

You brought up the cobbles yesterday. What was the pain like when you were going over those cobble sectors, and were you anticipating that?

LC: To be honest, I didn’t know what to anticipate going into yesterday. I’m very fortunate that this type of fracture is stable and secure. So just the sheer force of the cobbles wasn’t going to do any more damage to it. But for me, it was really tough mentally getting prepared for the fight in the race, fighting for position, and so many crashes yesterday. The last thing I want to do is go down again.

Yesterday was quite difficult mentally for me. And then over the first few sectors of cobbles I felt, ‘OK, I don’t feel absolutely terrible. This isn’t excruciating.’ But by the time we hit the last six or seven, then the pain definitely started to set in, the adrenaline kind of wore off. It just really started to take its toll on me, just holding the handle bars on the cobbles was quite difficult. You’re trying to keep a loose grip but you’re being jarred all over the place.

By the end of the stage, my body definitely took a beating, and I’m definitely feeling it a bit.

You mentioned mental preparation. What does that entail for you?

LC: When you go into a stage like yesterday, you almost have to prepare for war in your mind. And that’s kind of the feeling that the peloton has. No one’s friends, especially on a day like yesterday. Everyone has one goal, and that’s to either put themselves in a position to win, or put their leader in a position to win. And it doesn’t matter how you do that, as long as you get your job done is really the only thing that matters.

That of course makes the peloton extremely nervous, extremely stressful. We saw that yesterday with just the sheer amount of crashes, and just mechanicals that everyone had. Just a very challenging day. There’s not one moment during the entire stage that you can mentally kind of relax a bit. It’s just four hours, or three-and-a-half hours for the winners, of just sheer concentration and fighting.

Did you have any close calls yesterday? Did you ever have to get off the bike or did anyone fall in front of you?

LC: When Richie [Porte] crashed, it was right after a turn, so we came right around this turn pretty quickly, and everyone braking. So that was my closest call. I put myself in a position to be as safe as I possibly could yesterday. It didn’t make for the easiest race for me, but I was kind of sitting off the back on the cobbles a bit, just so I could have time for reaction. But it’s a rough day, it’s a rough stage. you never want to see anyone crash. Unfortunately that’s just the way Roubaix kind of goes.

It seems like you’ve had an easier time hanging on to the peloton each successive day. From day to day, is it that the pain is lessening, or that you’re becoming accustomed to the pain?

LC: I think the pain has definitely got a bit less. We’ve done so much rehab on it, so much work on just making sure the muscles around the shoulder are as loose as they possibly could be. And that’s made the absolute biggest difference. But it’s also just comfort back in the peloton — getting the nerves back, getting yourself back in the game mentally. And that’s also been a huge part.

Ever since the crash in the Tour, I was just kind of participating in it. And then for the last few days, especially for the cobble stage, I was just kind of slowly trying to get myself back in the mentality of, ‘OK. The work we’ve done on the shoulder has been really encouraging, now it’s time to get into the mentality of racing the Tour de France.’

So that’s one thing I’ve been really working on, just getting in that mindset and preparing myself just for the fight for the task at hand, just so I can contribute to the team.

I imagine it would be pretty easy to get shook by a big crash, especially. What’s keeping you motivated during this Tour, especially since, for now, you’re at the back of the peloton?

LC: The biggest motivating factor has been all the support I’ve received from everyone from my wife to everyone on social media. The fact that we’ve been able to take this pretty big negative, a potentially race-ending crash for me, and turn it into this huge positive of raising money for the the Alkek Velodrome in Houston. Seeing the result we’ve gotten from that, especially the first few days after the injury, after the crash, they were so difficult on the bike.

But just knowing that I was doing it for a good cause, I was suffering for a good reason and bringing awareness to the velodrome, that was by far the biggest motivator for me, and the biggest thing keeping me in the race. And it continues to keep me in the race.

I’ve been really impressed by that, too. Were you surprised by that support, and has it been even bigger than you expected? It’s almost been serendipitous that you crashed because it raised awareness for what you’re doing.

LC: [Laughs] I’m completely blown away by what everyone has been able to accomplish, what we’ve all been able to accomplish for the velodrome there. They’ve done so much with so little, the guys around the velodrome have done such an incredible job of giving kids in Houston this environment to exercise safely, and really just have fun. Because that’s what it’s all about. Exercise should be fun, especially as a kid. There’s not commitments, there’s no crazy lifestyle that you have to live. It’s just getting outside and enjoying your time outside.

So for me, that’s been absolutely huge. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

You last rode the Tour in 2016. I’m curious what you took away from that Tour that you did differently, or was able to better prepare for this time.

LC: I think that’s kind of where WHOOP comes in. The 2016 Tour — and to be honest, I think I came in a bit overcooked. I got a bit overexcited with the training, with the fact that I was racing a Tour de France, and I was just kind of pushed a bit too far.

And that definitely carried over into 2017. I just battled with being overtrained for the entire year. I just wasn’t myself, I just wasn’t in a good place. That’s how I found out about WHOOP, and that’s how I got on it. And ever since then we’ve taken this different approach to training, you know? You still have to work incredibly hard to be at the top of your game, but you have to do it in a smart way. And so that’s one thing we focused on during the run-in to this year’s Tour, is training efficiently and training smarter. That’s taking a look at everything from your training day’s power data to all the way down to how you slept that night before, to your resting heart rate in the morning, your heart rate variability. All these things have really helped us fine tune my fitness just to be at an absolute peak for the Tour de France.

And I think we can honestly look back and say, ‘OK we did this the right way.’ I had a fracture in my shoulder blade on Day 1, and I’ve been able to race at the highest level of sport with a fractured bone. So obviously we did something right with our training, and WHOOP, having that data, having a good baseline over the past year, was an integral part of getting me here.

You mentioned overtraining, what was the biggest adjustment you had to make to get your body right again?

LC: One of the biggest challenges was mentally struggling through the season in general. Before I was able to get back on the bike and start training properly again, I had to get motivated to do it, I had to get right in the head to want to go out and suffer, and get better. For sure that was a big change. And like I said before, just having the data from WHOOP that we can look at, and we can look at trends and see how the body was reacting to what we had done.

It kind of goes hand in hand — you wake up with a poor recovery score, you notice yourself kind of feeling down throughout the day. So then you start to take steps toward maximizing recovery, having proper nutrition, proper hydration, making sure you get a good nap in throughout the day — just all these small things that may not sound like this huge life changing process, but you add them all together — maybe 2 percent here, 3 percent here — the next thing you’re noticing an uptick in your recovery.

It may not make a huge difference for tomorrow, but it’s something that might make an incredible difference for a week from now.

If there was one thing you could tell a young rider — you want to make it all three weeks, and you want to be at your strongest — what’s the one thing you’ve got to do?

LC: Oh man, enjoy it. It sounds like such a small and naive thing, but it’s so important. I’m very fortunate to be a part of a team that’s a really good group of riders. We have a lot of fun off the bike as well. And that’s the biggest thing. I feel like a lot of this conversation has been about the mental aspect as well, and it’s so true. If you can be happy with what you’re doing, and enjoying it, it’ll make life 100 percent easier. You start to notice your mind’s been a bit more calm, you start to get better sleep, you’re more rested during the morning. You’re just happier to get on the bike and suffer, which sounds a bit strange, but yeah.

What’s your favorite thing about the Tour de France? Why do you enjoy it the most?

LC: When you’re at the Tour de France, you know that you’re truly at the top level of the sport. There’s no race harder than the Tour de France. And for me, and everyone, it’s just the pinnacle. You get to compete at the very top level, against the very best guys, on the very best course.

And for me, having the opportunity to showcase your ability on a stage like that, it just can’t be replicated.

So then from a rider’s perspective, what’s the worst thing about the Tour de France?

LC: Probably the stress. The stress in all aspects of this race. Pretty much from the moment you wake up, you’re on a tight schedule of making sure you get the proper amount of food in, making sure you don’t under fuel, making sure you don’t over fuel, making sure you’re on time for the bus, making sure you’re on time for the race, fighting the entire stage — it’s just constant stress.

So for me and probably a lot of riders, that’s kind of the most challenging part, because there’s so much exposure around the Tour de France, it makes it unlike any race in the world, and it’s just not something that you can quite prepare for other than doing it.

Going forward, tomorrow is when the serious climbing starts. What are you anticipating for those stages? Do you feel like you’re going to get back to a place where you can help [team leader Rigoberto Uran] get back up high in the general classification?

LC: I’m really hoping to rebound. It’s difficult enough to recover from the Tour when you’re completely healthy, but I’m really hoping that I’ve gone through the worst of my injury and I can start moving forward in terms of recovery and start doing what I came here to do, and that’s to help the team out and contribute. It’ll be a challenge definitely over the next 10 days, but a challenge that I’m honestly looking forward to.

Being at the back of the peloton, you’re not necessarily surrounded by your teammates, but you’re surrounded by a lot of other guys that are hoping to hang on for whatever reason. What is the teamwork like with those guys, and do you form a sort of kinship with them?

LC: It’s definitely different at the back of the peloton than it is at the front. There’s a lot less stress. Take yesterday as an example, there was a rider from a completely different team, his name is Jay Thomson from Dimension Data, and he would actually come off the back in these cobbles sectors in the last group off the road and help pace me back to the front after them. For me, that kind of goes to show you the difference in the back of the peloton. It goes quickly from everyone fighting each other for position and true stress to a camaraderie of, ‘Ok, let’s work together to make the finish.’

What do you have planned for after the Tour?

LC: It’s hard to know what I have planned. My main focus has just been making it to the next day. [Laughs] If everything goes well and I do end up making it to Paris, my parents are flying over, and then they’ll be there in Paris. And then we’ll go back to my home base in Toronto for about a week. And at that point it’s just to decompress, just relax, and try to get back to normal life.