Haute Route Pyrenees, Stage 5 (ITT)

Those of you who are reading will be pleased that one we are nearing the end and you will not be enduring the blog so much soon. Secondly today was a TT (col du Tourmalet), so a much shorter story to tell. I hear cheers...!

The start of the TT was 18k up the road. I had decided the night before I would ride to the start as I know if I took the mini bus there I would not warm up properly as I had done before on Alpe d’Huez and the Stelvio climb. I allowed an hour to do the 18k which was mostly a drag gaining around 300m. Some of you who are sports people, or especially cyclist will understand how important toilet movements are in the morning before a big event. No, I am on my own?! Well I will carry on anyway. With pretty much every day being a race for the last couple of week I have been under pressure to, lets say, “go” in the morning. Today being a time trial they set everyone off in reverse and luckily I am near the top of the GC standings so I almost got a lay in. So without the early alarm call and may be only an hour from eating to starting the stage today was a good day for “go”ing! Strange as it may seem, but I knew I would have a good ride up the Tourmalet even then before I had a chance to warm up.

Warming up for me is mostly random, by choice something like 10-20 minutes light easy pedalling. Then it is very random, sometimes several one minute bursts steadily getting higher in wattage until I feel my lungs are starting to get moving.Today, I only did two 30-40 second bursts just under what I was thinking would be “race pace”. I felt ok, knee was sore but nothing better or worse. So I arrived at the start gate area with ten minutes spare, just right. Another good thing. I was hoping I would catch my, what they call “minute man”. A minute man is the guy who starts a minute in front of you. You know from the order that if you do you are on a good one! The difference today was they were 30 second men. Until I entered the start gate and found out that the final 5 five rider would be two minutes apart. I never like finding out information this late on, but let it pass and refocused on the work at hand.

I again decided last night I would be riding for 65 minutes, so with that in mind I thought I could hold 320 watts for that amount of time thinking of fatigue. I left the start gate and we had a few minutes until we crossed the timing mat. I hit the mat and after the initial 20 seconds I looked down at my Garmin and focused on finding the feel for 320 watts. Right now into rhythm, some days you feel your turning squares but today felt nice and smooth. I was finding the numbers easy to come by, even a little high. I went with it and got to 5 minutes and was hardly puffing, maybe 40 breaths per minute. Sometimes I would decide to push on a little but I kept to the plan, make it feel easy for as long as I could. 10, 15 and 20 minutes all came and went. I was picking a few of the riders off now and a few of the non event riders too. All was still feeling good. I was getting less pain from the knee than in the warm up too, very strange.

I was loving the super smooth new road they had built 12 months ago after the river ripped away the old one. In the middle of these types of efforts I tend to think about efficiency and staying loose and relaxed, you know that it will start to hurt at some point but until then you stay calm, relaxed and enjoy the speed while it lasts. I spotted for the first time my “”two” minute man. I was no more than 30 second off him, bonus. I reeled him in at about 45 minutes gone and flew past him to make sure he did not try to draft me. That done I cracked on and started to feel the hurty stuff coming on. That little burst did me no good. I knew from research the night before a certain corner was under 8 minutes to go. I hit that and I saw 53 minutes on the clock. I am going to be close to 61 minutes not the 65 I had predicted. That is the type of news you pray for!

I again refocused on making circles, staying relaxed and holding the power on the average, which was showing 339. This was very high for me and a bit of a surprise. I hear the road really had a nice kick with a couple of minutes left and when it did rise to over 10% I was ready and stood up starting a pathetic effort of an early sprint. Bad idea, I sat down again as my legs were rather dis-pleased about this. When your in these very late stages you just want it to end as soon as possible. From the 1k to go marker you feel “ok”, then suddenly all you can think of is where is the dam finish line. I hear some voices I recognise, they are telling me less than 300m. I always think they are lying, another shout saying under 100m. This time I see the line, the road is kicking up again. Standing I dig in for the line and boom its over. As usual after 20 seconds I feel alright, sweaty but the breathing is ok. The summit is covered with Haute Route kitted bodies, some are lying on the floor. blood, tears, puss the lot! I roll for about a minute and then park the bike to eat up! I have finished with 340 watts being my average, what ever the result say I am very pleased with the numbers. I never thought I could do that after so much fatigue in my body.

I am very much a man who does not mind is if win lose or draw. Winning is a great bonus and I was chuft winning stage 1 for sure. I find more pleasure in today and doing something I never thought I could, it does sound very dull being pleased with numbers but thats how I am.

Tomorrow we are back to the fun of descending. as always I will be ticking off each descent as I go and try to stay safe and away from other people. Only two days left to keep things safe. Thierry the guy who has been fixing my legs each afternoon said yesterday my legs would be good today and he was right. Then today he said they will be “strong” (in a french accent) tomorrow, lets hope he is right again!

ps: sorry that was another long read....