Lance's final Tour

Not entirely unexpected but he's announced that this will be his final Tour de France. For me this makes doing the Etape this year even more poignant and of course I will have the chance for a bit of hero worship as I will be staying on after the Etape to see a couple of stages.

I have no idea how easy it will be to get a viewing point up one of the mountains during a stage but I will give it a damn good try.

He can't win unless Contador gets injured but another podium finish will be an amazing result I think.

Bye

Toys Hill ride

Anyone in a Sarf East London or North Kent club or who has ridden a Kent sportive will probably be familiar with Toys Hill. I had heard about it but never ridden it so I went out to put that right this morning. What a cracking ride.

4:41 in the sunshine with two ascents of Toys Hill and another corker round the corner called Yorkshill (yep, one word) which I also did twice. I haven't got the individual stats for the two main climbs but the total elevation gain for the ride was 1,733m. I felt quite good riding back to home and I even braved the fast and busy A21 where I got into time-trial mode and really went for it. .

I do have a problem with the bike. Last weekend I noticed too much vibration coming through the handlebars and a slight clonking. I tightened the headset but while out today it was the same making me nervous on the downhills. When I got home I shook the front of the bike and there is clearly something loose with a clear clonk coming from the forks /headset. I will get it serviced before the Etape so better to find out now.

Etape countdown...3 weeks to go

All too real now. Haven't quite worked out the Etape travel arrangements but that will come together next week.

On Thursday and Friday serious training was all but killed off due to work. Wednesday was good, nearly 4 hours riding. Tuesday I did the commute cycle nice and hard and spent an hour in the gym rowing and doing bodyweight exercises. Monday the same except the gym session was an hour on the spin bike.

I'm well aware I should be getting some long rides in but to be honest I feel pretty good. The 'injury' hasn't really bothered me - something's not right but I doubt this will be too much of a handicap.

I'm a believer

http://twitter.com/lancearmstrong

Etape du Tour survival

Worth reading Alex's excellent series Etape du Tour Survival. Superbly opinionated on jerseys as I've mentioned before!

I saw a while back in a magazine a pro rider who rides 23mm tyres on the front and 25mm on the back. I must try and dig that out. Alex recommends 25mm for the Etape. Worth thinking about.

Tour de Suisse TT

Very interesting this. Lance seems to be in good form and from his tweets appears to be very fired up for today's TT. Just can't wait to see how he goes. I pinched this great pic of the Shack start times...

Smithfield Nocturne

Had an hour wandering around this event yesterday although regrettably (understatement!) I couldn't stay for the elite race. I would have loved to have watched Mighty Malc in action and Kevin Knox from the club was in the field too. I don't know the results but it also seems Cav made an appearance although I am not sure if he raced. A couple of side events to the racing were of interest.

These guys from Theatre Delicatessen were performing Pedal Pusher which I thought was terrific. So difficult to do this sort of thing in a windy street with a chair, a box and some road barriers as props but they pulled it off brilliantly. Lance on the right, Pantani on the left and I guess that was Ullrich in the middle.

And Oliver (on the red bike) won his Rollapaluza heat by half a second thanks to a late burst. Well done dude!

Etape countdown...4 weeks to go

I'm a very impatient person and I rarely plan much in my personal life therefore I've quite surprised myself with the Etape. I must admit though I am getting to the stage now where I just want to get on with it.

So what has the last week been like and what's between now and the Etape?

I work as a freelance analyst/consultant in IT. I don't particularly enjoy it and could think of a thousand things I would rather be doing with my time but I have chosen my path and will have to put up with it. People of my age 'with responsibilities' don't start new careers. Sorry for the life stuff here but now and again in one's working life significant career opportunities pop up. Thinking back I have had 3 significant ones. The 1st one I turned down because I was too immature; the 2nd I grabbed with both hands; the 3rd I grabbed and then stupidly within a year let go because I didn't have the patience to wait for the reward. And now I have a 4th. Without exactly turning it down and burning bridges I tried to put them off me by telling them I had no experience in that subject matter, not shaving, not tying my shoelaces, being rude and spending too long in the gym. It didn't work. Opportunity knocked, I pretended I didn't hear, it knocked again and with a due sense of exhaustion and dread I answered. From entering the first project meeting like a man going to the gallows (a very rude unshaven man with his shoelaces undone) I'm now a dedicated IT professional once again. Fandabidozi.

Etape impact? Training suffers. Diet suffers. Sleep suffers.

I have also found myself to have a rather odd injury. I will call it an injury even though it's not stopping me doing anything [yet]. A few weeks ago I had a sharp throbbing in my left calf muscle. I've still got that. In the last week I have felt like my left leg was not doing as much work as my right. It felt like my upper leg was not quite properly connected to the lower bit and there was no power coming through. I've now got a sore knee on the inside bit of the leg and today I've got a pain down the left hamstring. Ummm...I'm guessing that this is because I am a bit lopsided due to the calf pain.

Etape impact? None really. I am going to try to stretch more and I have ridden quite strongly this week even though the left peg feels a lot weaker than the right.

Looking forward I am still hopeful of fitting in a sportive probably next weekend. Then there is the Cycling Plus sportive which starts fairly close to home but takes place on the weekend before the Etape. I don't think this would do me any harm do you?

Joe Hall @ Rapha

Dear Joe,

Ouch. Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything that might have labelled one individual. Last night you came across as a top bloke who was passionate about his subject: you were let down though and shouldn't feel that I was laying the blame entirely at your feet.

Giving a presentation is extraordinarily difficult and all credit to you for giving it a go. I wanted to hear what you had to say but it was impossible.

I have connected with a small group of people through setting up this blog and to be honest I've always thought that it is only them that are reading it. I didn't intend to attack Rapha per se so I've learned from this to be careful what you say on the interweb. You never know who is reading.

I can't take you up on your offer but the gesture is very much appreciated. I threatened a while back to wear Rapha on the Etape as I wanted to look my best for the big day. I'm going to make sure I do that as a way of saying thanks for leaving your comment.

All the best,

Andrew

Rapha Etape seminar - wtf

Just think how many things you could do with 15 quid. I'm sure a mosquito net somewhere would come in handy. A vaccination. Some food for someone who is starving. A book for someone who doesn't have any books. You could even buy nearly 10 issues of Heat magazine. All these things would be better than spending it with Rapha on their Etape evening.

I lasted less than half an hour before I walked out. ************************************************ I could have forgiven the fact that it started late. I could have forgiven the fact that the screen was so low down that only the first few rows could see it. I could have forgiven the fact that the guy with the microphone didn't know how to use a microphone. I could have forgiven the fact that they were so ill prepared and amateurish that it was embarrassing. I could have forgiven the fact that in the 30 minutes I stayed all I learned was that the Marie-blanque is really fucking hard. All this I could have forgiven if the people working in the shop/cafe weren't so up their own arse that....grrrrrrr....on the floor above the presentation room they played loud music, chatted and then clod hoppered down the stairs to get to a storeroom keys jangling on the hip every few minutes.

************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Stunts on carbon

Usually the domain of BMX or more recently the fixed gear crowd...do watch until the end!

Via BikeRadar

Tour de Suisse - ouch

I was watching from behind the sofa as this finish was being played out. So fast, so crowded and CRASH!

Hard hard sport. Cav at fault for me here but hope all OK.

Mirror man doing the Etape

Quite a decent blog from a triathlete and fellow Etapper.

Steve Halsall

I've been Paco'd

Yesterday I got Rick Roll'd and today I got Paco'd. I love it - Paco, muchisimas gracias! Venga La Roja este año podemos!

Etape medal times

I'm not absolutely sure if there are different medals at the Etape but on the Mondevelo site there is a breakdown by 'objectif' and this could be Gold, Silver & Bronze.

Gold under 7 hours

Silver under 8 1/2 hours

Bronze all other finishers

My French isn't up to much but I think they might be saying that to prepare for a Silver medal time (e.g.) then you'd have ridden about 5000km, with 6 rides of 150km+ and taken part in 3 sportives.

Contador on L'Alpe d'Huez

Just sat enthralled by the action in the last hour from today's Dauphine stage which finished on L'Alpe. You've got to see this. Thrilling stuff. If a video link comes up I will post it.

Great photo set here. Copyright Russell Standring.

Happy birthday Marco!

The diet is off for 24 hours as we celebrate my beautiful boy's 16th birthday. Among other things he's asked for a fixie (at least I think that's what he asked for!). How cool is that.

Chrissie Wellington MBE

Congrats to the superwoman! Outstanding athlete.

New Sufferfest

Great news, there is a new Sufferfest out called 'Revolver'. I'm a big fan of these so will have to make a purchase.

Etape countdown...5 weeks to go

I was so tired and low last week. Work was rubbish, home life was intense, I was dieting and not sleeping much. If J-Lo had called me up and said, "Hey Andrew, I'm in town. C'mon out - we'll have dinner, go to a club and then we'll make made passionate love all night", I'd have to say - sorry luv but you'll have to find someone else cos I'm knackered. Yep, it was that bad.

And then Friday came. The only reason I didn't have a duvet day was that I wanted to ride my bike. I rode into work with very tired legs, shouted like a madman at some dopey motorists and then sat at my desk mucking about with stuff trying to look busy. I went off to the gym at about 11.30 and did Sufferfest Fight Club. What a sweaty mess I was (must have looked horrific to the lunchtime cardio bunnies) but came out pleased that I had managed to do the full thing. I then went to a meeting and was superbly arsey. Nobody punched me or anything. In the afternoon I was asked to take on a new project and it's quite high profile for them so I was chuffed they trusted me with it despite my crap attitude and I thought I should be grateful that so many people are struggling to find work and I'm doing okay for now. I worked late and then rode home quite strongly. Had 2 incidents within a mile of work: a motorcyclist just did a sudden u-turn right across me and then a van overtook me, pulled in front and slammed his brakes on to turn left. Oh man, did I give these two some stick. When I got home I immediately stepped on the scales. 82.9kg!!

Suddenly life didn't seem so bad. My 82kg target is close and I might be able to exceed it. Could 80kg be a possibility? I have been super disciplined this week with weighing and calculating my food intake and capturing in my home made Excel food diary. I said in post last week that I would aim for 3000 calories per day but check this chart out. I didn't get to 2000 calories in a

day. I did get the nutrient ratios wrong but I will do better on that next week.

Training wise I was disappointed not to spend longer on the bike, and again, I will put this right next week. I do feel that I could do with one more sportive before the Etape and I am looking at opportunities to fit one in.

Sunday: 2 hour ride (50km) including hill repeats

Monday: 43km commute ride, 1 hour on spin bike (intervals 12 mins, 10, 8, 6)

Tuesday: 43km commute ride, 1 hour gym of rowing and core work

Wednesday: 1 hour of rowing/bike/rowing/bike/rowing trying to keep HR at 80% of max

Thursday: 10km run, 30 minutes of kettlebells and core

Friday: 43km commute ride, Sufferfest Fight Club

lol

6946

Very happy to have my number now, the suspense was killing me. I'm quite pleased with it so thumbs up.

Skinny envy

This week I am mostly obsessing about dieting.

There was a story on the Cycling Weekly website this afternoon which now seems to have been removed but I captured the following quote re Wiggins:

"Ellingworth said that Wiggins rode the Giro weighing 74 kilograms and stayed at that weight. Now he will lose the last two kilos and aims to start the Tour at his ideal race weight - 72kg."

72kg - he's 6'3 (1.9m)! That will make him a 2.1 on the Friel scale which isn't bad. I still don't think he will beat his 4th place in the TdF from last year though.

Rapha Etape evening 17th June

Thanks very much to Alec for this lead. I'm really looking forward to this.

http://www.rapha.cc/etape-evening-17th-june-2010/?cm_mmc=email-_-040610-_-textlink1-_-etape

Tourmalet times

There's a TdF supplement in this month's Cycling Plus which includes most interestingly an article on a guy tacking both sides of the Tourmalet in the same ride. It took just over 3 hours to ride the full 35km and 1hr 36mins to tackle the climb we will make from Luz St Sauveur. The article predicts that on stage 17 the pros will ascend in 50-55 minutes!

I eat too much

A few years ago at a rather lovely restaurant I tried lobster for the first time. The waiter took our order and then rather theatrically hooked two of the live crustaceans from a tank nearby and brought them to our table for me to choose. On the tray was a skinny small one and a big fat one. I swear the look of resignation on the big fat one's face still brings a tear to my eye. He looked with his beady black eyes at his competitor on the tray (who I might add was looking rather smug) and then looked at my huge bloated sun burnt face beaming down at him and I am sure I heard him say under his breath, "Oh no, it's Peter Griffin - I'm dead". I still wake up now with the sound of his screams coming from the kitchen (of course I made this up: I'm sure he didn't suffer and if it's any consolation I didn't really enjoy him and I've not eaten it much since...much).

I tell this story because one of my Etape goals was to get down to 82kg and the problem is not that I don't do enough exercise but that, like most people, I eat too much. Or more precisely I'm just bloody greedy, I eat more calories than I need to fuel and repair. Reading a couple of magazines while on holiday there were 3 reminders that this is the case.

1) An amateur who spent some time training with a pro cycling team. He did less than half the riding than the pro he was profiled against but was amazed at how restrained the pro was with his food intake.

2) A letter in a tri magazine from someone who wondered why despite all the training they didn't seem to lose any weight. The answer is obvious - you are overestimating how much food you need.

3) In another tri magazine a look at the daily diets of some pro triathletes. The diets in some cases were far from perfectly balanced but despite the fact that these people are training for up to 5 hours a day I definitely eat more than them.

When I lost 10kg in about 6 months I did it by following a strict diet I was given and timing my carb intake to sit around my workouts. Some days I could get by on 1800 calories and it worked. I got down to 87kg and the weight has stayed off (now 85kg ish) even though I am more relaxed about my eating. I'm doing much more cardio work now so I need to look afresh at my dietary requirements so I can lose that extra 3kg+ without Etape performance suffering.

So let's have a go at my daily calorie intake. Using the calculation in the The Time Crunched Cyclist (Mifflin-St. Jeor):

• My resting metabolic rate (RMR) is coming out at 1750
• As I have a desk job I will use the lifestyle factor of 1.25 so that's now 2187.5

Now this is where it gets tricky. How much to add on for calories burned during workouts and ensure I get a deficit? This is going to vary day by day but on work days I will do roughly 3 hours of training and the calorific expenditure is going to vary with the effort or work-rate. Going by the book I could add 1000 calories to my total per hour. Looking back at my Garmin stats for my cycle commute I can burn over a 1000 each way but even with my greediness I cannot see me eating over 5000 calories per day and lose weight. When I look back at my food diary from when I was dieting 3000 calories looks like a fair amount of food to leave me satisfied and what I will do is start there and if I am feeling underpowered then I will up the carb/protein intake.

How to split that 3000? I will go for 50% carbs (low GI as much as poss), 25% protein, 25% good fats. So that's 187.5g of protein (sounds perfect, 1g per pound of bodyweight), 375g of carbs, 83g of fats.

It's a bit of a pain but I have found it absolutely essential to weigh everything and keep a food diary. I will add daily intakes to my blog if only because it helps to achieve goals if you share your aims with others (peer pressure/embarrassment of failure and all that).

Training plans for the run in

6 weeks out and I've loads of time on hols to think about what I would like to do training wise leading up to the Etape. The way I see it I have about 4 weeks left which can still be part of the build period and then a couple of weeks when I should be peaking in readiness for the big day.

So the simple plan for the next 4 is:

• Ride the bike as often as possible trying to fit in at least 2 hilly rides of 5 hours+
• Do 2 interval sessions a week probably on the spin bike. This will be one 2x20 session and one Sufferfest or similar
• Do 2 core dominant workouts most likely with the kettlebell
• Do one 10-12km run a week
• Nail my diet (more on that to come!)

I will keep the running going even though this is the area where I am most likely to pick up an injury. Okay, the distance isn't that great but on injury risk I was interested to read in Runner's World about the 'ultra-shuffle'. This is an economical running style used by ultra marathon runners and involves keeping the arms around waist height and every step "as low to the ground as conditions allow". The attraction is this minimises impact injuries. I'm sure I'll get some funny looks but I will give it a go.

6 training weeks until the Etape

I've been away for a week of gluttony and sloth but I think I've just about got away with it. Within a few minutes of arriving home tonight I stepped onto the scales with dread - and drumroll...despite a week of too much food, too much alcohol and no cycling I am 85.2kg which is about what I was when I left. How does that work?!

Well I did do some training: 4 gym sessions of weights, rowing and spin bike plus 2 runs of just 5km each. But, I have eaten a diet of seafood, fried fish, the finest fatty Iberico ham all washed down with beers and wine and ohhhh the ice cream. Also, I now have a Haribo habit which I need to kick pdq.

As much as I enjoyed the holiday, I did not like the indiscipline and I am delighted to say that there are no 'planned' distractions between now and July 18.

Well I hope everyone's training has been going well. I will catch up on all the blogs and I have loads more to talk about. Fingers crossed Rich & Rob are on the mend - we've got to have all the bloggers and commenters up in those mountains on the big day. Ambitions have to be realised and selfishly it will be a huge boost to me to know you are all out there.