LIMBURG

148 kms | 5 h 31 m | avg speed 27 km/h | avg hr 144 | kcal 3526

Today I went to Limburg Zuid, in the south of Holland, to participate in the WTC Grensland sportive. A 148 kms ride  with 23 steep climbs above 2 kms in distance and a lot of rolling hills. There nothing is flat, the hills are steep and the views are fantastic. It was a great day with very good weather and a good team. Take a look how it went and some pictures after the link.

Hoje eu fui para a região de Limburg Zuid no sul da Holanda para participar da corrida WTC Grensland. Foi uma corrida de 148 kms com 23 subidas de mais de 2 kms e muitas outras menores. Nada é plano aí, as subidas são ingremes e as vistas fantásticas. Foi um dia perfeito com bom tempo e um time muito bom Dá uma olhada depois do link como foi o dia e algumas fotos.

The team on the 30 kms to finish marc. Great guys.

The day started early with the alarm starting up at 4:30. My ride, Peter, arrived at 5 and we quickly drove the 1 hour 30 minutes to Neerbeek, close to Maastricht. Good part of the team was arriving at the same time and we went thru the ritual of getting dressed, picking up the numbers and started riding at 7:00 am. The temperatures were already around 10 degrees.

The start was at a easy pace and everybody was just chilling out and chatting. We went thru the obligatory hills and with 20 kms into the ride we went thru Valkenburg and climbed the famous Caubeg, the first big challenge of the day. With legs already warmed up and still fresh I climbed it well. At the top, I kept on going at slow pace to regroup with the rest of the team but little I knew a flat had stopped them and took very long to regroup. Actually that happen around 40 kms into the ride and I was alone for all this time.

Knowing that in km 69 there would be a food station and that would be a chance to rest, I started pushing hard and kept my heart rate around 170 bpm. I tried to keep the speed around 35 on the flatish areas and keep going uphill as hard as possible. This was the hardest part of the day with long and steep climbs all the way and managing an average speed of 26 km/h  was very good.

We even had to do under closed gates to complete the challenge.

One tactic that I like to do in Limburg is to try to keep the cadence around 95 to 100 rpm and keep momentum. So, on the flat or slightly downhill areas just before a climb I try to gear down to a heavy gear and push as hard as possible. Then, when the gradient is getting too hard, I gear up on the front ring to the small and try to get to the top before the heart hit the lactate threshold. In that way I manage to take over quite a good number of riders on the climbs and not go to the red zone.

After the feed station we started riding hard again and very soon we found a group of 4 riders that were going fast. A group of 3 or 4 of us join them and we rode as a train for quite some kilometers. It was great to dash thru little cities and push hard at every corner, almost get dropped in the climbs and push hard again to not lose the wheel in front. We cover 25 to 30 kilometers very fast.

We hit the second feed station at 114 kilometers into the ride and decided to wait for the rest of the team. It was around 20 degrees by then and it was a good opportunity to relax, eat, drink and chat with the group. Laying on the grass in the blazing sun and drink cold water was like heaven at that point. Energy was going down quickly and a prolonged brake was very welcome. From there we rode a stead and strong pace to the finish, all of us did some attacks here and there and waited at the top of the steepest climbs for the ones suffering.

A great day in the saddle. I’m feeling strong on the flat and climbs and just need to build now resistance on the longer climbs. A fantastic, funny and combative team made the day even better. And a very good training for what is coming in 2 weeks: the Tour du ALS, on May 30.

TRAINING LOAD

With a weekend not riding, my fitness level went a bit flatish (the green line). This week I managed to go twice to work on the bike (which is around 50 km per day) and do one interval session, which bring me up again to 88 long term stress. The result is a 957 trimp points made this week vs just 206 last week. I will try to keep the volume at this level for the next 4 weeks before getting a week rest. On the menu, one or two sessions of 3 intervals of 8 minutes.