It’s been just under two weeks since I wrote my last blog, in fairness I could’ve written it whilst away in France, after all I had quite a bit of spare time to write it on that Monday as I was convalescing from a sickness bug which left me empty and unable to train/ride. I’m not going to lie – I had a complete meltdown! I got half-way up a fairly simple climb on day two and couldn’t move an inch further, threw up breakfast and then sat on the roadside sobbing. Not a good look for a grown man! I then phoned Suzy and considered returning home on the next flight – yes, I had lost the plot slightly!
Rewinding back a week and all was in place for a week’s racing before I headed off to the Alps. The dinnertime run went to plan – a smooth 11km on the usual route through Gorleston and onto the seafront before returning for work. The swim was “ok” after falling foul of dizzy spells in the lake, new ear plugs had yet to be delivered so I persisted with the old ones and everything seemed ok.
The following day was Lotus #3 and I was no confident that I was able to really add to the teams’ performance – this I did by trying to mix it up a bit at the front and with Titch and another rider off the front at the end by a fair distance I led the rest of my team-mates out for a 3rd, 5th and 8th. A few acknowledgements at the end by the team made it all worth it – at the end of the day it’s all I was there for.
The next evening was the Wroxham 5k series where Suzy was running too. I had asked beforehand what her PB for 5k was, to which she replied “24:06”. I did recall last year she had hoped for a sub-24 minute effort to qualify for something. Adding to this everyone was telling me this course was a PB course all seemed to be heading in one direction – to get Suzy her PB. In fairness she didn’t really know much about it until about 10 minutes before the race when I said “how do you feel?”, she said she was ok and she’d see how she’fd go. I suggested going out at PB pace and see if she could hold it (4:48 per k) and she agreed. Instead I went out doing 4:40’s and she held on to make a huge PB of 23:27. She did swear at me afterwards but I think she liked the challenge! lol
The following evening I was back on DAP team duty, being the 3rd rider in a 10-mile open time trial at Wymondham near Norwich. Harley & Titch are speed merchants at this discipline so my performance was going to be way off their mark, but if I rode well we could pick up the team prize. The wind was not in the right direction apparently so the longer (5.5mile) return leg was against a rising wind. I started well and didn’t get carried away – something I do alot when the pressure is on. Got to the turn and started to open up the taps on the return leg – in fairness I didn’t give enough on the way out so I ramped it up slowly but surely until the end. Some would say this is how you should ride a 10, but I felt I didn’t give it a proper go and came in with a 22:50 time – my best for quite a few months. Harley & Titch rode well and my time, although fast in my eyes just missed the team prize from a specialist Time Trial club by a handful of seconds. With that I donned my trainers and did a brick run for 20 minutes just for good measure.
A steady lunch run the next day on the usual 11km course saw my UK week complete as on Saturday I was travelling from 3am to Alpe D’Huez in France with Ironman Pro Joe Skipper and his dad to meet up with fellow Rock Estate riders for Jay’s Stag do – he thought he was going to Scotland so he had a bit of a surprise in store when they put him on the Channel Tunnel Train!
The journey took us over 14 hrs and I was well & truly knackered by the time we got there. Drop the bags off, have a scout around the resort (we were 1900 metres above sea level) and go for dinner which turned out to be a chicken & beef “cook it yourself” affair, fondue-style at a local restaurant – the ONLY one open at this time of year.
Sunday saw what we had come here for – the climb of Alp D’Huez. First though we went the long way round and round the back of the famous climb – the road the Tour De France went down in the 100th edition when they climbed it twice. This forgotten road was exactly that – forgotten and we spent at least 2 hours walking our bikes across glacier-type avalanches of snow and rocks that had fallen off the mountain and had yet to be cleared. This was to the summit of Col De Sarenne at over 2000m, this we descended at 40mph+ before tackling the big one. Keen to ride this well I hit the lower 4km slopes at 10-13% hard at over 300w, this was my undoing as although the slopes reduced to 7-9% further up of the 14km climb I dug too deep and had nothing left to tackle the rest of the climb hard. In doing so I had to just survive the rest at 240-260w and just get up there. I did so in 1hr 20 minutes – double that of Marco Pantani who did it in 38 minutes in the mid-nineties!
What made this day even more remarkable (apart from another climb off my personal bucket-list) was that of Stag Jay Lingwood who did this climb on a 3-speed shopping bike with 20-inch wheels and wearing a shellsuit looking remarkably like Jimmy Saville!
The next day I was hit hard by my previous day’s efforts – this was what I described earlier in this post. I started being ill at 5am, losing all my previous night’s food, not keeping my breakfast down and then persisting in trying to take on the day’s climbs with the stag group – as explained above…..nope!
Keeping my food down for a few hours the following day was a little better, off the bike this time I decided to go along with Joe Skipper and Ollie down to Grenoble to then do 2000m swim in an open olympic pool and then a 11km run round the river in 25 degrees heat. A good day at the office at last 🙂
The following day was a rest day for everyone as we had organised a white-water rafting session. I’ve never done this before so it was definitely a “not to be missed” thing. After two 5km runs, one man overboard and completely voluntary jump into the melted snow streams by all of us we headed home and slept well.
The next day was a return for me on the bike after my sickness so I was keen to do well, the whole group agreed to go up Les Deux Alps – a small 1600 climb (comparatively speaking). As expected the group split up with the vast difference of abilities and we all met at the top to descend together. Once at the bottom we all went further down the valley to then climb a balcony route that took us alongside Alp D’Huez to give us breathtaking views of the valley. This route was initially 10-20% to get up but once up it was indeed breathtaking. A quite unused road so you had to miss a few rocks that had fallen from the cliffs but that was a minor inconvenience considering. We ended up at turn 16 (to go) of the 21-turn Alp D’Huez and then proceeded to go down into Bourg D-Oisans for lunch.
Joe Skipper suggested going up the Croix De Fer before coming back for the day, feeling fairly ok I agreed but I was only one of three riders doing this. The others had done this when we went swimming & running the other day so they didn’t want to do this twice – it soon became apparent why they didn’t want to as the initial part of the climb was 11-12% for 7km and then the next part was barron and snow-covered. The temperature soon dropped and by the summit I was very keen to just get home as I was in the red as far as energy was concerned – no gels or energy drinks left I resorted to filling my water bottle ups at a mountainside stream. After a brief scary moment when I didn’t know which way to ride I retraced and came down to the warmer valley. This is where I met Ollie, on the dam where he had already called for one of the group to come down and pick him up. Joe had continued to take on the big climb yet again to finish his ride absolutely cooked.
The next day saw the rest of the group go home leaving just me, Joe, Ray (Joe’s dad) and David. So we went to the swimming pool again before seeing David off at Grenoble Airport. Instead of returning to Alpe D’Huez we stayed nearby at a local village in a purpose-built cabin where me & Joe went for a run in the area – a complete shock to me as it was very hilly and I tried to run 10% climbs….and failed miserably, resorting to walk in a couple of places.
The Saturday was the big journey to get back to the uk, this we did and returned home by 10pm. Only to get up early for a leg loosener ride with Suzy and the Beccles Triathlon guys in the morning and washing clothes and cleaning bikes in the afternoon!
There it is – a bloody good two weeks. Some “ups” quite literally and and some downs.
This week sees me getting back into a solid week before tapering a touch before Belgium and my first Half Ironman……….whoops! I mean a 70.3 event! lol
Training Peaks Geeks…..
Week 1: 12hrs overall. 767 TSS. Fitness 101. Fatigue 113. Form +8.
Week 2: 14hrs overall. 666TSS. Fitness 101. Fatigue 101. Form -1.