My friend Stephen,
I must apologise for not catching up with you again and for not returning your text (my mobile phone was turned off for the weekend). But what a great weekend it was. Sandra and I stayed with friends in a huge house. Plenty of room, a pool and a well equipped kitchen where great meals were being prepared. A great place to recover after the tough races we had.
So, another Battle on the Border was raced. And how tough was it? Tough! For me, because it is so early in the season, it was very tough. As you know, I haven't done enough high intensity training, or racing to put myself in form to even stay with the bunch. The result? I was dropped in all the stages.
I came to this race for a good, high intensity workout and to, somehow, measure my form against the big hitters I will be racing against later in the season. I am not saying I didn't want to do well. I had a plan and like last year's BoB, the plan was to work as hard as possible and for as long as possible in the road races, cover early attacks and perhaps, just perhaps, get a break going.
Another reason for putting myself through all the fun (and pain) was to make use of the power meter and collect lots of important data to be used to put my next training program together. I did that and here are the results:
Race One: I didn't go too hard, wanted to save my legs for the road race later in the morning - 25th.
Race Two: I did a fair bit of work (perhaps too much) in the first half of the race and cramped really bad going up the climb for the forth time and got dropped (1:50') - 23rd.
Race Three: I planned to attack the bunch around the 12 km mark but things started to happen much earlier (it was fun!) and got dropped as we got to the climb (0:40') - 24th.
Race Four: That was hard, I lasted 9.5 minutes with the bunch and pulled out 10 min later...
The final result? I think Sandra's picture tells the story... I think the weekend was a big winner!
Now, I did see you racing the crit and thought you looked pretty good in the front group. Later, I saw the GC results and found your name in the top ten. Mate, that's is fantastic! Congratulations!
See you on the road,
Alberto
I must apologise for not catching up with you again and for not returning your text (my mobile phone was turned off for the weekend). But what a great weekend it was. Sandra and I stayed with friends in a huge house. Plenty of room, a pool and a well equipped kitchen where great meals were being prepared. A great place to recover after the tough races we had.
So, another Battle on the Border was raced. And how tough was it? Tough! For me, because it is so early in the season, it was very tough. As you know, I haven't done enough high intensity training, or racing to put myself in form to even stay with the bunch. The result? I was dropped in all the stages.
I came to this race for a good, high intensity workout and to, somehow, measure my form against the big hitters I will be racing against later in the season. I am not saying I didn't want to do well. I had a plan and like last year's BoB, the plan was to work as hard as possible and for as long as possible in the road races, cover early attacks and perhaps, just perhaps, get a break going.
Another reason for putting myself through all the fun (and pain) was to make use of the power meter and collect lots of important data to be used to put my next training program together. I did that and here are the results:
Race One: I didn't go too hard, wanted to save my legs for the road race later in the morning - 25th.
Race Two: I did a fair bit of work (perhaps too much) in the first half of the race and cramped really bad going up the climb for the forth time and got dropped (1:50') - 23rd.
Race Three: I planned to attack the bunch around the 12 km mark but things started to happen much earlier (it was fun!) and got dropped as we got to the climb (0:40') - 24th.
Race Four: That was hard, I lasted 9.5 minutes with the bunch and pulled out 10 min later...
The final result? I think Sandra's picture tells the story... I think the weekend was a big winner!
Now, I did see you racing the crit and thought you looked pretty good in the front group. Later, I saw the GC results and found your name in the top ten. Mate, that's is fantastic! Congratulations!
See you on the road,
Alberto
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
1 comment:
So all in one you accomplished all your targets! Well done :-) and yes, Sandras pictuers say it all: It must have been mostly fun!!
Post a Comment