Grain of Sand

After watching Het Niewsblad and Kuurne this weekend (Belgian season openers), I am chomping at the bit to start racing. This February has been all about preparation for racing. My coach has been giving me shorter intervals (1 -2 minutes), some 5 minute efforts, and some long tempo and endurance rides that will hopefully hone my form. My knee is great and I feel stronger than at any time last season. I still need to get my bike position just right, but its almost there (cleats are good though). My weight is stable at 70 kg and my body fat is going down. I was hoping to get some race efforts done in Nice, on our team training camp, but a sore throat and blocked nose meant only low to medium intensity! Pretty annoying as it lasted the whole 9 days but at least I could still ride with the guys. Some of my team mates were racing at the same time (Tour of the Med, Haut Var, and the upcoming Tour of Murcia), and it sounded brutal, especially with the weather. For me details see our team webs...

I thought I had better update my blog. George has been quite prolific recently, albeit he has been doing slightly more interesting stuff (Beijing World Cup). Not that what I have been doing is boring at all. As soon as I was back from Scotland I managed to get out for a 4 hour ride as there was no snow, but managed to crash on some ice and tear up my hip- luckily that was all I damaged. More turbo, rollers, and gym work till Lanzarote! Next up was a training camp in Lanzarote. I went out with Joe Perrett, Pete Dibben, James Astbury, and Phil Peters. It was a great camp, and a far cry from other training camps I have done in Newport bombing up and down dual carriageways. I went out to build up my base so I did 40 hours mostly at around 130-150 BPM heart rate but with a few intervals mixed in. The weather was perfect and the roads varied and exciting. It was also the first time I've been out clubbing- pretty embarrassing. We got back in at 4 after what the other guys said was a crap...