After taking my final Before-the-Tour ride up Flagstaff, I feel ready to leave Boulder behind for a month, trading in the Rockies for the Pyrenees and the Alps. Not only am I excited about the croissants and the chocolate and the cheese, but also, somehow, I have become just a little bit obsessed with analyzing all the data I will collect during this epic cycling trip. Working with a bunch of software junkies seems to be rubbing off on me, after all. My final ride up Flagstaff was recorded on a friend's Powertap so that I can officially document my Before and After power output, and my training rides for the last month have all been supervised, not by a coach, but by a Garmin device that faithfully reports exactly how slow I really am going. It's gotten to the point where if I do a workout without recording it, I almost feel like it didn't even count. Ridiculous, obviously.
They warned me that this might happen.
Before I begin the grueling process of riding from Toulouse to the Alp d'Huez, however, I get to spend a couple of weeks relaxing on the beaches of southern France and visiting friends in Italy. I'm worried that all this lounging around may ruin the competitive edge I've developed with so much training, but in the end I think my fitness concerns will probably be over-ridden by my talent for relaxing in the sun. I need to rest up anyway to save my strength for the Tour, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment