After my last 5 hour Sunday ride, and final long run Friday I was done with my main training. It’s always a weird time when you’ve done the hard yards and are essentially waiting for race day. The big benefit this time was flying out a few days before to get ready for the race. Makes a change from getting up at 4am on a Sunday morning to travel to a venue somewhere in the UK.
Victoria, Lily and I flew to Lyon from Birmingham airport and then took a hire car from there to the Alps. I had opted to drop my car off at Palmers the week before so that it got there in one piece. I had originally hired a bike box to take it on the plane, but given the airline wouldn’t book it in in advance I didn’t fancy taking the risk of it not making it on the plane with me.
Ian had booked the chalet for the week near the lake that we would be swimming in, Lac de Verney. It was an inspired choice. It was situated up the hill on the way to Vaujany, where most people come in the winter for skiing holidays. The view was spectacular.
The lads had already been there for a few days and had been for a few spins, including going up Alpe D’Huez. I’m secretly glad I wasn’t there with them, I really didn’t fancy going up that thing twice. We went for a short ride the day before the race to test the bikes out and get some miles in the legs. It was stunning. The weather was amazing too, at nearly 40 degrees. This was the one factor that was going to make a hard race even more challenging. I must admit, I was getting slightly worried about the heat. Being a pasty fair-haired guy, I wasn’t exactly great at coping with warm weather. Staying hydrated over the duration of the race was going to be top priority.
That afternoon we drove up to the exhibition area at the finish line at the top of Alpe D’Huez to register and drop off our running kit in to T2. It was my first look at the legendary 21 hairpin bends of the iconic mountain. I’m not sure whether it helped or not, but at least it gave me some idea of what I’d be facing the next day. The Tour De France had come through only a few weeks before so all of the road graffiti was still there. I’d watched on TV Geraint Thomas storm to victory on the stage, and it looked amazing then. Experiencing just a tiny part of what G and the peloton had gone through just added to the anticipation.
We had our mandatory pre-race carb loading pasta meal that evening and started thinking about race itself. Everyone was understandably getting a bit nervous but excited as well. I think we’d all been in a state of denial since we’d entered the event. None of us had ever done anything like this before and although we were pretty confident it would be ok, there was no guarantee how we’d get on. Probably a good time to have a proper look at the race guide and understand what we’d let ourselves in for. Bring on race day.