from Allen Lim, PhD

It began today. Well actually, it began a long time ago when these guys first got addicted to cycling and started down a very long road to the Tour. But that road got a little shorter today here in La Molina Spain smack in the middle of the Pyrenees on Day one of our final training camp before the Tour de France.

As a little prologue to the events leading us to La Molina, all I can say is that it has been an epic and intense season so far. Training camps, Qatar, Tour of Cali, Spring Classics, Tour of Georgia, The Giro, and now the Tour. It has been a mind boggling schedule -- one that has given me little time to share much of anything with anyone. And as great of a year as it's been so far, I will admit that the success has come at the cost of any semblance of life balance I once had or hope to have for the next 6 weeks.

I was reminded of the sideways kilter in my world today by Danny Pate at the beginning of today's ride. While I was driving the follow car, he rode up yelling and screaming at me about whether I had a camera. "Lim, where's your camera?" he yelled. I told him all I had was my CrackBerry, to which he responded, "C'mon man, you gotta document....DOCUMENT...this shit isn't going to happen again!" Then he pulled out his camera (something I've never seen him do), and he snapped a picture of me, laughed and rode back up to join the guys. The Pate totally caught me off guard. He was smelling the roses and I wasn't. He was documenting what is truly a unique and singular time in our lives. It inspired me to take stock of everything we are doing, to take a few pictures on my BlackBerry and to start writing again.

Of course, this brings me to the hear and now, which is a two week training camp with some of our key riders for the Tour -- David Millar, Christian VandeVelde, Ryder Hesjedal, and Danny Pate. Those four riders were the only riders we had that finished last month's Giro D'Italia. Since the Giro they have been recovering in St. Moritz Switzerland. We reunited in Girona, Spain on Saturday and promptly headed up to the ski town of La Molina that sits just above the Cerdunya Valley that borders France. The terrain here is truly epic. It's some of the steepest terrain that I know of with an almost unlimited supply of climbs on both sides of the valley. We've rented four small apartments up here and will spend the next 8 days training in the mountains before heading back down to Girona for some heat exposure and final prep with the rest of the Tour squad. Our primary objective while up here will be climbing, time trial work, climbing, a little more time trial work, and more climbing, followed by climbing.

To that end, we started today's ride with a 1.5 hour team time trial workout in the valley with Tom Danielson leading the way. Tom is about to head off to Route du Sud, but lives at the bottom of La Molina in a town called Alp when he's in Europe. It was good timing to have him still around to join us and to show us around. For the time trial efforts, the guys took 1 minute pulls at 4.5 to 5.0 watts per kg at 60 rpm while sitting on at 120 rpm at 3.5 to 4.0 watts per kg. Each rider pulled through 3 times for one set and we got in 3 sets before calling it and switching to road bikes. After getting on the road bikes, the guys did two major 40 min climbs over the next 2.5 hrs. On each climb, they did repeats of 8 minutes at 4 to 4.5 watts per kg at 80 rpm, followed 40 seconds at 5 to 5.5 watts per kg at 100 rpm, followed by 20 seconds at 6.0 watts per kg at 60 rpm, repeating the 40 second and 20 second piece before recovering for 8 minutes back at 4 to 4.5 watts per kg. The process repeated on both climbs for a total of 8 x 2 min efforts at about 5.0 + W/kg and 8 x 8 min at 4 to 4.5 W/kg. Sound confusing? How about 2 x 1 minute race pace efforts with a 20 second low cadence anaerobic surge at the end of each minute followed by 8 minutes of recovery, repeating until nearly dead. The entire purpose of the ride was to reintroduce the time trial bike and some solid climbing while also working a bit on strength and a bit of anaerobic work -- something that has been missing since time off from the Giro. At only 4 hours it was a conservative first day for what will be a solid and difficult final camp. With the help of Adrie van Dieman, we've put together a two week block that will revolve around 2 days blocks (2 days hard followed by 1 day easy). The first day of each block will focus on intensity and time trial work as well as some road climbing while the second day will focus primarily on endurance and "medium" intensity climbing. The added bonus on the 2nd day will be some scooter assisted speed work leading into the base of each climb.

So that's the current update. Hopefully, Danny will be proud that I'm documenting though he might be pissed that I've given away most of our final Tour prep plan. In the end though, it's not just the plan, it's a lot of heart and the discipline to execute that make it all work. So unless you're Danny Pate, don't try this at home.

Allen