Miles apart.

As I've been sitting in Class all week, John Parks and the rest of the team have been pilling on the miles. The team did 160k on Monday including a Time Trial race in Spain... they did 170k on Tuesday, a 90k road race in Spain followed by 70k ride home to the hotel on Wednesday... I sat on my ass all 3 days! John seems to be getting on fine. I've spoken to him a few times, and also have been constant contact with Marion our Directeur Sportif. She's worried he will end up feeling left out because he doesn't speak the language... but I think JP knew that coming in. Other than that she says he's getting on fine. Some of the younger guys are getting tired, but it sounds like JP is still going strong. This weekend will be his first BIG race. And when I say big it is BIG.. there are some Pro teams there etc. So we'll see how that goes.

YEsterday rainned all day here, so I did intervals indoors. Today I met my buddy Alphonce for a ride. Alphonce (AB) is looking pretty good. He's seriouse about getting selected for the National MTB championships. One of the first selection races was this past weekend. AB won the race. It was his first victory at that level, and he isn't even on top form yet. Hopefully he'll get selected for Nationals, and he might even pull off a good ride there. Rumour has it that he will even get a brand new fully custom, hand built bike in time for Nationals.. SWEET!
Quite a few of you who've come over here know AB; he's a really cool guy and I would love to see him pull something special off!


The long road to fitness.



So I met AB for a ride, we got in 3 hours. At first I didn't feel great, but after a while I felt pretty solid. We did a loop with a bunch of short steep hills... I then left him in Albi and headed home via the hills of Carlus... these are a series of 4 hills that are at 9%. As soon as I got home I jumped on my TT bike and went out for a Time Trial test/interval. I did pretty well considering I already had 3 hours of riding under my belt. I averaged 288Watts.. I wanted to average 300Watts, but that's Ok. So I got in about 4 hours today.. not a bad day.

The Time Trial controle pannel: I like to get as much info durring myTT tests.


It was pretty windy out there today. I have noticed over the past couple years that I am unable to put out much wattage in a head wind. IF there is no wind or a tail wind I can put out big wattage, but not as a head wind. I've tried changing position, cadence etc.. but it chances nothing. Hmmm...

Tomorrow should be a long one.. but they are calling for rain, so we'll see.

I'm gonna go call JP and have a chat to him about tomorrow's race. These races really are big and pretty scary. They are like the biggest Pro races in the US. So I'll chat to him about a few things and see how he's feeling about tomorrow.

France is still a country of tradition: Sheepdogs are still common in these parts.