Cycling apprentice

stats of the week: run 9km, cycled 185km
stats of the week before: cycled 270km

With all three events successfully finished my short cycling season is finished now early in the year.

Maratona dles Dolomites was a tough day due to the heat and my unsufficient performance level. I struggled to get through and ended up half an hour later than last year after 138km and 4100 vertical meters. The day was still very enjoyable until the unshadowed ascent up the steep road to Passo Giau. Best experience of the day was the descent from Passo Gardena when I was able to improve my placing for the very first time on any descent.

Col de la Madeleine worked just as a warm up!

A week of rest let me recover in time to tackle this year's L'etape du tour Act 1 from Albertville to La Toussuire. This is the route that the professionals will go on Thursday. It includes famous passes like Col de la Madeleine and Col de Glandon via Col de la Croix de Fer and the final climb to La Toussuire. This makes up for a total ascent of 4.750 vertical meters on 152km. I was very happy to finish this personal record of climbing with more than a third of the 4.400 finishers behind me. Not mentioned the 1.200 who abandoned the race.