Queen Stage of the tour today. It was billed as 4000m of climbing, reality came in a little under that but I wasn’t disappointed.
There were four major climbs and Johno set “games” for two of them…
Col d’Arvais - warm up
Col des Saises - ride a blind interval and guess your power
Cormet de Roselend - prize for highest percentage of FTP
Bourg-Saint-Maurice to Val d’Isère - just survive
I got a little cooked yesterday so opted for a solo early roll. This decision gave me all the pieces for an active recovery day:
Set my own pace.
Cool.
Quiet (no music, just me and the birds)
I rode easy over the first three climbs, skipped the lunch stop (I was too far ahead) and arrived in Bourg-Saint-Maurice having averaged 207 watts and 104 bpm, across 8,500 feet of climbing.
Something you’ll find as your body gets used to big volume is you can recover across a ride, especially if you fueled up the day before and don’t get depleted.
…and today was one of those days.
I put in a Steady hour of climbing towards Val d’Isère (242 watts / 126 bpm). Along the way I came across several pro teams training on the climb.
Was happy, relieved and feeling hollow when I pulled into Val d’Isère. The first supermarket I came up on was closed but a gas station saved me.
Rolled up to the hotel and Oli had tracked me in. Was in my room in no time, showered and snacked.
The last two days give me an opportunity to explain another thing that’s shifted from 15 years ago.
Training Mix
How I approach volume, intensity and their combination.
I’m going to explain:
Peppy Day.
Race Simulation Day.
Endurance Day.
Easy Day.
Yesterday, once I made the decision to swim hard, was a Peppy Day.
Peppy Day means stressful due to the dose of high intensity.
We need dose AND intensity.
A couple max effort short efforts won’t stress me out.
After the swim,
I set a PB on the 5K run,
It was hot, and
I was sweating profusely.
All before a challenging ride.
…I was heading towards a very stressful day.
Adding a ride with a lot of tempo took the day beyond Peppy and it become a Race Simulation Day for the Alpe d’Huez triathlon in a week’s time.
Race Simulation Day
High dose of race specific intensity.
Sustained Work Rate at Goal Race Effort
High Overall Output (Swim - Run - Bike).
We need a lot of General Capacity for these days not to tip us over the edge.
Even with excellent General Capacity, we need to be careful in the following 48 hours.
My feeling was good last night, but it had been a massive day.
Sleep was fair, woke up a few times (probably because I ate so much from 4pm to 9pm).
In the morning, my metrics were suppressed (but not tanked).
Therefore, I decided to:
Ride alone to remove the temptation to ride hard with the fast guys.
I rode as easy as possible (literally) for the first five hours of the ride, then…
I rode a Green Zone segment up the final climb. This segment felt good, power/RPE/HR aligned.
This is a good example of an Endurance Day for a top amateur.
4150 kj of output.
Relaxed pacing.
Cool and quiet.
What’s next?
Keep an eye on myself, remember I have a long race next Thursday and have fun.
The “changes” from back in the day:
Split “hard days” from “endurance days.”
Don’t stack “hard days” if possible.
When we did these camps 15 years ago, we’d race most days across an 8-12 day camp.
That wouldn’t work for me anymore.
I don’t want to find out what it takes to break me.
I want to improve my performance.
Forecast is looking grim for Sunday. Might be an opportunity for an Easy Day.
What’s an Easy Day?
Half of your average daily volume.
All easy pace.
If you’re training at a level of 21 hours per week then your average daily volume is three hours. Half of that is 90 minutes, all easy. I take two of these, back-to-back, every week. Most weeks have three total.
+++
Tomorrow’s ride takes us over the Col de l’Iseran (elev. 2,764 meters / 9,068 feet), our high point for the camp.