Great training camp finished

I’m writing this as I’m sitting in the Airport waiting for my flight to leave (delayed, of course). I’m pretty cooked after an easier day and another two hard training days. I’m really looking forward to some rest (i.e. work and no big training) now!

On Wednesday, the training camp had an official rest day. I took the chance to get a longer (but pretty easy) run to the light house in. Most of the run was along the beach and the waterfront, and then a bit up towards the cliffs and the lighthouse (which required about 10 minutes of pretty steep uphill running). Great views from up there along the coast line – too bad I didn’t bring my camera. But here’s a picture from Horacio I found on Flickr:

After that it was just an easy 30 minute swim, some lying in the sun taking a nap, and more nice eating.

Thursday morning I got another swim in. 60 minutes with some faster/longer sets, all in all not feeling too bad. I had signed up for a “shorter” training ride today as it included some hill repeats. It was an easy 45 minutes out towards a nice hill – some switchbacks (about 10 minutes of uphill) and again great views from the top. Then we went back down the other side towards the old monastery Betlem and back – repeat twice for four uphill intervals.

The group then decided for a longer loop back, so I ended up with another 95k session. I thought of doing another core session, but I cancelled that in favor of a nap – as I had signed up for the big stage on the next day!

Friday morning the weather promised to be great for the long ride. It started with a 7.15 meeting to put the bikes in a van and then a quick breakfast. At 7.45 we boarded the bus to be shipped across the island. After 90 minutes we were dumped in Port Andratx to start the 170k ride back to the hotel. A quick picture of the group before the start and then we left. Pretty soon the hills and mountains started and I had to work pretty hard. After a short stop to make sure everyone was still with the group after the initial tricky route through the town. The faster people split off the front. Unfortunately, after the next mountain we re-joined them after one of them crashed on the downhill (probably a broken collarbone). Again, some more delay in order to make sure that the rider would be brought to a hospital. Good thing that there were no more issues after that!

After three hours of up and down riding we were at the base of the Puig Major, the biggest climb of the tour – almost 14k with an average grade of 7%, about 800m of climbing. Everyone was supposed to ride the climb at his or her own pace. Our guide made sure we were all okay and had enough to drink and eat, and then went on his own little training session.

Here’s a view from about half way up back to Soller where the climb started:

Except for this short photo stop, I went at a pretty constant heart rate and didn’t loose too much time on the rest of the group. In fact, towards the end of the climb I was even getting closer to the girls in front of me, so I was quite happy with it. It was probably the longest climb I ever rode, it took me 1h 5 minutes. The guide rode in about 45 minutes, and he said the record was 33 minutes. We caught our breath at the top of the climb, happy that almost all of the climbing was over. After riding through the dark tunnel at the top, there were some smaller uphills that didn’t feel too good, but we made good progress. Before the last long downhill some of the group stopped to pass some drinks around, but I went on with the others. I then ended up near the front of the group and decided to stick with them so I had someone to copy when going down the hill. We got a sweet draft behind our guide in the last flatter section towards Pollenca where we stopped at a supermarket for water, coke and something to eat.

Everyone was pretty tired by now, but we still had about 60k of mostly flat riding back to hotel. Again, the guide and one of the stronger guys rode from the front at a good pace. We quickly rode through some coast towns, and it was a pretty quiet group by now. The last hills hurt quite a lot, but the group stuck together until we hit the hotel after more than 7h30 of glorious riding through the mountains in great sunshine. A warm welcome by some of the other guides, a quick photo after the ride, a long, hot shower, and a nice, big dinner – after that we were able to appreciate the great day we’ve had. What a great day of riding, and what a great way to end this training camp.