Hi everyone
Well I am now back in Zürich after La Marmotte on Saturday. Tomorrow I will post a more detailed analysis of how it went, but just to summarise I am not overly pleased with the result as it was 4 minutes or so slower than the last time I did it. But at least I completed it for the third time, and that I am happy about. Looking at the results my official time is 10 hours 1 minute and 20 seconds. The event did not go trouble free with the cleats almost falling off my shoes on both feet, and this lead to a lot of slipping and knee rotation. At one point I did consider giving in, as my knee was really twinging and unlike last time I don't have 2 months to allow my knee to recover, as now I need to keep training for my Vuelta Sudamerica ride. But then as I descended towards Bourg d'Oisans the knee twinges stopped and I was able to continue. There was also not that much option as the chalet that we hired was on hairpin 2 of Alpe d'Huez i.e. pretty much at the top.
The other guys who I was staying with in the chalet all did well, and Pete did a particularly great time - just over 9 and a half hours. He is knocking his time down by huge chunks each time he does it. If I had got the time that Pete got I would have been happy with my performance. Looking at the results it seems I arrived 12 minutes after him at the bottom of Alpe d'Huez but lost around 20 extra minutes on the climb itself. The conclusion is that I must have climbed Alpe d'Huez really slowly to lose 20 minutes on that climb alone.
Overall though I didn't feel I was struggling as much as the other 2 times. I was able to keep going without a problem and only stopped at feed stations, whilst the other times I had to take several rest stops. So I think my fitness is definitely better. The problem it seems is that the speed is not there. I can discuss this point further tomorrow, but could it be that I focussed too much on endurance and not enough on speed training????
Goodnight folks
P
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