Building up the Ks, recovering and following the Tour de France

Monday. It's marked as an off the bike day, a rest day.

I do feel that a day off would be the right thing to do. I am tired after a solid week (my standards here!), tired after watching most of the TdF stages at night and tired from getting up too early to go to work.

The funny thing is, part of me tells me that it would be good to get on the bike. Something like an easy spin on the rollers. Another part says the contrary, that I am tired from the lack of sleep and should rest. It is hard to make this decisions sometimes, as both options have their benefits.


Training

Some good sessions in the week that ended yesterday, including a couple of efforts at Coot-tah and a fast 83.5 km ride. I say fast because I had a nice tail wind for the first half of the ride and fast again as I raced frantically to get home and to work on time. Typical of my late morning rides before late shifts.

On the weekend, and with some assistance from friends, I managed to ride to Elimbah, north of Brisbane, race a club handicap and ride back home. All of the 155 km in a fast to very fast pace. Great riding day!

Surprisingly, I got up early on Sunday, on time for the Zupps ride (I had to get more kms in anyway!) and that's never an easy bunch ride. To top up, Sandra and I met after that and we rode to Southbank for breakfast. Another 4 hours on the saddle when I got home. Another great riding day!

Here are the graphs:

Wednesday: Mt Coot-tah for strength workouts

Saturday: Three laps, handicap race

Sunday: Zupps, 15 kms of race pace

Time: 14h 35min

Dist: 425.5 km


This week, I will drop the volume back a little as I have a couple of races coming up. Saturday, HPRW will be running the club crit championships, this year run in age groups. Then, on Sunday, I will be off to Mt Tyson for the Jon Brooks Memorial.

Plenty of recovery needed after that!


Recovery

There was a lot of emphasis on recovery over the weekend as well. A good diet before and after the training, ice on the legs and a hot baths on both days. There was also a new pair of compression tights on the weekend. I truly believe on these garments, these are my third pair (I have old Skins). Perhaps not the single answer to a good recovery but certainly a great help. But you have to wear them for a long time.

More on how good these are soon.

The Tour de France

As much as I enjoy watching and reading about the Tour, the teams and the riders, what goes on in the media and with the cycling forums around here makes me wonder what people's interests really are.

When Australian riders, S. Gerrans and A. Davies got dropped from their teams, the folks in this country went completely mad. More so in Simon's case, a TdF stage winner, diffusing a harder blow which , triggering what some described (and some encouraged) as pure anger.

There were insults directed to Gerrans team mates, team managers, bike manufacturers, the Spanish population, etc... I was shocked with such a show of narrow minded nationalism, when most of us didn't even know why he was sent home.

At the time, I was afraid some Spanish restaurant in Melbourne was going to get torched. The old call for an all Australian team was again mentioned in the media. Something that hasn't been seeing in the Tour for 70 or 80 years...

OK, there is room for a bit of patriotism here but what about the Tour, what about the twenty teams and their 180 riders. Does anyone around here know that Thomas Voeckler & Mikhail Ignatiev defined all odds and beat all the teams to Perpignan? What about Brice Feillu, the 23 years-old who won a mountain stage in his first Tour de France?

I guess it doesn't make the domestic headlines.

This piece started without much bearing. Now, I feel inclined to write something witty to finish it off. But waiting for some divine light will give me time to read and re-think what I wrote and very likely stop me posting it... Ah well, nothing too serious!