Stage 13

Well, another stage done and yet another tough one it was too but it's in the bag. During the ride today I met up with a very nice chap called John who is from Ireland. John is on a mega-ride, he has ridden the route of The Giro and is now riding the route of The Tour. When that is finished he is planning to ride the route of the Vuelta! He's covering an average of around 100km per day and seems to be having a great time having taken a year out of work from an understanding employer. Chapeau John I say, et Bon Courage.

I'm continuing with the pacing plan I've used throughout the ride so far which involves keeping my power output below 2/3 of my FTP whenever possible, not pedalling hard unless I have to, and taking advantage of all free-wheeling opportunities. This is definitely not the fastest way to ride but I've stuck to it in terms of it being very energy efficient and allowing me to use fat for energy and to conserve precious glycogen as far as possible.

So far this approach has worked extremely well and I recommend it for this type of ride or for any long ride where speed is not the primary concern. The thing to do is to train at a far higher intensity than you plan to ride at and this will make you very efficient in terms of energy source utilisation when you drop the intensity for a ride such as this. It also means that you have to spend less training time in preparation for this type of thing, train short and hard to ride long and steady ;-)

I've now completed 13 full road stages of the Tour de France route and there are 5 full road stages remaining plus the time trial and the procession ride into Paris. So, just 5 full road stages left to ride, but what stages they will be! I'm just going to continue with my plan and keep hoping that things continue to work out Ok for me, please keep you fingers crossed out there, I need all the help I can get!

Photographs from Today:

John from Ireland on his mega-ride.
Lovely scenery mid stage.
Typical French tree-lined avenue, beautiful, and shady!

Today's Weather:

Hot, around 29 degrees, and very humid, rained this afternoon, Strong headwind for much of the day.

Ride Time: 09:50 hh:mm
Work Done: 3810kJ
Training Stress Score: 253
Intensity Factor: 0.539
Normalised Power: 165W
Variability Index: 1.35
Ride Distance: 119.2 miles
Elevation Gain: About 6000 feet
Maximum Power: 539W
Average Power: 122W
Average Heart Rate: 111bpm
Average Speed - True: 12.1mph
Acute Training Load: 230.2
Chronic Training Load: 137.3
Training Stress Balance: -92.8