Jasmijn Muller LEJOG record attempt, 7am on 5th September

Report from Steve A on YACF:

Just got back home from crewing.
I wasn't there at the start and joined Jasmijn just south of Bridgewater to hand up a bottle with the sleep support van in case the other two support vans lost her in traffic in bridgewater, which is a bottleneck for traffic. (We lost Wheels of Fire in Bridgewater and never caught him until just before bristol, where he lost us again and recaught him up the A38)
Jasmijn looked very good and as if she was pacing herself very well, which she was. We nearly missed feeding her because the tracker was lagging quite a lot but as it turned out, she had already picked up a bottle and had eaten er food, so just threw me the wrapper to put in a bin.
Jasmijn made very good progress and looked very strong and was more or less on schedule. But going into the night she was becoming a bit spaced out. She looked very good on the bike and rode very well but showing signs of tiredness.
Just before the 24 hours were up she stopped to change clothes etc and she was still spaced out and tired. She was also not eating or drinking to her food schedule. Not eating enough. Not a good sign that she'd get through a second night but you can never always tell and she was still well in time to get the record, even if she hadn't managed the 24 hour record. She still rode 419 miles in the 24 hours, to my knowledge (best to check that than take my word for it)
Thereafter, Jasmijn was stopping for changes of clothes more often and losing a lot of time. She was still spaced out and feeling cold, so stopped in Kendal before climbing Shap. We would have stopped a bit later but it was drizzling, not very warm and there's not really anywhere to stop on Shap so we pulled the support van into a closed petrol garage where she could change clothes sheltered from the rain under the garage roof by the pumps and have a sleep in the van.
This didn't revive her as much as I hoped it would but it was still quite early, so I hoped she'd ride steady, which was still fast enough, and start recovering before going into the second night.
We encouraged her to keep going steadily and get her eating and drinking more but wasn't having much luck. Jasmijn was still very spaced out but riding very solid and starting to recover, but not very much. The team were doubtful but hopeful and asked me what I thought.
I said that it doesn't look good. It's still possible but she needs to recover if she is going to get through another night and even then, when you struggle through the first night, it doesn't bode well for the second night, so if she does recover enough to get through another night it will be very hard.
We managed to get Jasmijn eating and drinking a bit more, which was encouraging but it was still tough going and she told us a few times that she wouldn't do it or that the end to end was over but the 1000 might still be on. I told her it was still possible and she still had a chance and to just take it steady and keep moving. But she was fighting a hard battle. After feeling l, she got hot and there were stops to change clothing etc which were eating up time. She did start to perk up a bit but was still tired and a bit spaced out.
At around Perth, I had done 2 crew shifts in the supple van and swapped to the sleep van so we could go ahead up the A9 to get some sleep in the van before doing another supply van shift, which was leapfrogging Jasmijn so we could hand up food and drink.
When I awoke in the seep van ready to my next shift, I read the message in our What's App team group, that Jasmijn had packed.
I wasn't surprised. She fought a hard battle for about 18 hours. Not physically. She always looked very good on the bike and was strong. I think it was down to not getting enough sleep in the run up to setting off and everyone on the team, as we as Jasmijn seemed to agree that it probably was a significant factor.
I was glad that when I saw her in the morning that she wasn't beating herself up about it and in good spirits. She looked very good physically and walking OK. Not hobbling around and stiff as you might expect for someone who had just ridden over 600 miles in well under 2 days.
So we had breakfast then spent all day driving back to unload helpers, observers and then sort out the 3 vanloads of bikes, clothes and other stuff.