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With just over a week until this year’s Marmotte event, I decided to check the organiser’s website at the start of this week and to my surprise found that this year’s event had been limited to 7,000 places.  Not only that, there were only around 150 places left.  I had planned to sign up on the day, but quickly entered my credit card details to try and secure one of those last few places.  Thankfully I was successful, and I will line up at the back of the event with a number 7,202.  As the event is limited to 7,000 places, I’m not sure how I have a number as high as this but I did receive a confirmation email confirming my place.

This will be my seventh Marmotte, and my goal will be to ride around the 174 kilometre course in under eight and a half hours.  I was able to do that last year with less training, so I’m hopeful I can do it this year.  However, it’s difficult tell if I will have the legs for anything more than a few hours on the bike.  I’ve been managing work, three children with my wife, and training as regularly as I can.  I’ve lost about six kilogrammes, and it should have been more but I do enjoy a beer and glass of wine with friends.  The family come first, although I’m sure that my wife won’t believe that statement.  This year, I only have two rides above 100 kilometres so I’m not sure how the later slopes of the Galibier and Alpe d’Huez will be.  Still, I am looking forward to it and it will be great to catch up with all my friends who are coming across from Cheltenham to ride.  The Marmotte will also be good preparation for the 225 kilometre Brevet de Randonneur des Alps, another two weeks after

Over the last two weeks, I have started to feel a little stronger on the bike, which is one of the benefits of the regular exercise that I have been doing since the start of the year.  It takes me just over half an hour to ride the 18 kilometres to work in the morning and a little longer to ride home in the evening.  If I add a ride at lunchtime from work, I can cycle between 70 and 85 kilometres on a good day.  I really enjoy the ride to work with the view of the Alps as I leave my village, and even more so when I cycle over the final bridge before work and see the traffic jam on the Rocade Sud, the main ring road around Grenoble.

We have a good group this summer for the Wednesday ride from HP.  It has been the same 50 kilometre tour at lunchtime on a Wednesday since I arrived in France, 10 years ago, and it’s still a great ride and one that I don’t get bored of.  It’s usually fast with four key sprints along the way.  My friend Yann, has calves which are almost as big as my thighs, and is able to power along on the flat.  We have David, a workhorse who can sit at the front of the group and keep the speed high which makes you think twice about attacking.  Then we have Marc and Alain, the two dark horses of the group who can jump away from the front when you’re not expecting it.  It’s a fun hour and a half ride and I get back to work with a tired body.

Earlier in the season in March, I’d been left behind on the Wednesday ride by some of the other cyclists at work.  I didn’t have many kilometres in my legs at this point and was weaker than the rest of the group, but I did expect them to wait for me.  For me, this was the spirit of the Wednesday ride.  They didn’t wait which pissed me off so I decided to take some time away from the Wednesday ride to get some fitness and to enjoy my cycling.  Now I have found my legs and can mix it with the stronger riders at HP for the sprints and climbs.  Funnily enough, the cyclists who left me behind in March have now moved on to their mountain bikes as they are apparently not bothered about riding the Wednesday ride.  I do however thank them for helping provide some motivation to get fit this summer.

I bought a cheap heart rate monitor earlier in the year, which now allows me to time my training as well as guage how hard I am working.  My resting heart rate seems to be about 40 beats a minute and the maximum I had been able to push myself to had been 186 beats a minute at the start of June.  On Wednesday, I gave it everything to win the sprint in Vizille.  I made an initial attack with about 250 metres to the line, but saw Marc was coming back at me.  I kicked again and won the sprint and looked down to see my heart reading 194 beats a minute.   I’m 36 now so I wasn’t expecting to be able to get so high.

For the third year running, I took a group from HP Grenoble over to Alpe d’Huez on the second Friday in June.  This year, we had a mixed group riding up the mountain with some regular cyclists as well as some non-cyclists, some of whom had ridden the Alpe d’Huez on previous years.  A travel freeze at work due to the economic climate meant that some riders weren’t able to make it, but 14 of us all left Bourg d’Oisans on a perfect afternoon.  This year, we were also joined by Pascal, a unicyclist from HP.  Pascal left a little before the main group and rode the climb with regular applause from others on the climb.

The sky was blue in Bourg d’Oisans and we had a slight breeze on a warm afternoon.  The conditions suited everybody with many of the group setting personal best times on the climb.  I was joined by a friend Yann, who helped me film the group, which was a relief as with everybody had their new found speed and it was more difficult to move between riders to film and take photographs.  The climb was also busy with classic cars, with what must have been a hundred old Porches, Renault and Ferraris passing us.  It certainly took our mind off the climb with the constant roar of powerful engines.

Stephane, a visitor from HP Germany, whipped up the climb in 57 minutes with Alain just behind.  I’m sure that weighing in at 62 kilograms also helped Stephane be the first to the top.  With his new bike, Phil took a mammoth 14 minutes off his personal best from two years ago with a focused and determined climb, and Pascal took one hour and 40 minutes on his unicycle.  It probably took something similar to descend back down to the valley afterwards.  It was a great afternoon and it was again very motivating for me to see the group ride the climb, I’m sure we’ll be back there in 2010.

I ran my first ever running race at the start of June.  The Circuit de Mont Aguille is an annual 25 kilometre event with over a 1000 metres of vertical climb.  My running friend, Nicolas, had been pushing me to join him on a pictureque and challenging run through the Vercors mountains.  That is how he described it.  On June 13th, I joined the other 130 runners at the start in Clelles, a small village on the eastern side of the Vercors and situated under the impressive peak of the Mont Aiguille.

The first half of the event consisted of the two big climbs, with the second half undulating back to the finish in Clelles.  The first climb was a 300 metre vertical ascent that climbed a variety of roads, track and footpaths under the Mont Aiguille.  I kept my heart at about 164 beats a minute and took a drink at each of the regular feed stations.  The route was very picturesque and at the top of the first climb, we arrived at a viewpoint that would have been a nice place to stop and admire the view.

I immediately saw that my descending technique let me down as I was overtaken on the first big downhill by a number of people that I’d overtaken on the first climb.  Even on the flat parts of the course, I found it uncomfortable to try and stay at the pace of the runners around me.  On the second 400 metre vertical climb, I found my legs again and caught some of the people who had overtaken me over the previous kilometres.

There were regular feedstops and I regretted carrying such a full bottle in the bottle holder around my waist.  I had thought that the last five kilometres would be the hardest, but I felt relatively good once the second long descent had finished and the route climbed and descended the numerous little hills before the finish.  As we moved into the last kilometre, I caught the guy in front of me at the brow of one of the hills.  He let me know that his legs were starting to cramp up and I thanked him for his pacemaking.

I was pleased to finish in 37th position out of the 131 finishers with a time of just over two hours and 21 minutes.  I hadn’t run for around six weeks before the event as I had been training on the bike, and I paid for the lack of running after the race.  For the following two days, I could hardly walk.  It was a real effort just to get up and down the stairs.  My wife told me that I looked like I needed a horse.

I organised the third annual ascent of Alpe d’Huez for my cycling and non-cycling colleagues at HP, and spent a fantastic afternoon on the road to the ski resort on the 12th June. This year, we were joined by some new faces as well as others climbing for the third time. It was hot on the lower slopes but perfect on the upper slopes of the climb with a little wind to cool the riders down. With the help of Yann filming on his camera, I was able to put together a video diary of the ascent. Be sure to check out Pascal making the climb on his unicycle.

http://www.vimeo.com/5207905

Perfect weather in the Vercors yesterday for the 2009 Challenge du Dauphine event. Over 1000 cyclists started the event in the ski resort of Autrans with a choice of three distances, 66, 123 and 173 kilometres. I rode the 173 kilometre circuit, with 3,200 metres of vertical climbing, on a route that included the Col de la Croix Perrin, Col de la Chau, Col de la Machine and the Col de Carri amongst others. I rode most of the route with Guy from King of the Mountains on a spectacular circuit that included stunning countryside, tunnels and cliff roads, and numerous feed stops along the way. A really great day out on the bike for everybody.

http://www.vimeo.com/4923833

Summer has certainly arrived in the French Alps with a temperature of 35 degrees predicted in Grenoble today. Some of the higher mountain passes are now clear of snow with the Col de la Croix de Fer and the Col du Glandon opening in the last few days. It’s not too long until the Dauphine Libere cycling race will cross the Galibier, so we can expect that the snow will be cleared in the next week or so to allow access to the tunnel on the 2646 metre Col du Galibier.

I left the house early yesterday and rode the 1924 metre Col du Glandon and then descended to the Maurienne valley and climbed the 2067 metre Col de la Croix de Fer from St-Jean-de-Maurienne. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a 30 kilometre ascent and I could cetainly feel the two climbs in my legs by the time I reached the Croix de Fer. In all, it was a 115 kilometre loop with over 2,600 metres of climb.

http://www.vimeo.com/4807620

It was an early start this morning and I drove over to Bourg d’Oisans to ride to the Col du Lautaret.

The month of May is a great time to ride the Lautaret – the other 2000 metre mountain passes are still closed, but the 2055 metre Col du Lautaret is kept open throughout the winter. As the temperatures climb, this pass becomes an option in the Spring. The road to the Col du Galibier is still covered in snow and hasn’t been cleared by the snow ploughs for the moment. You can see my video diary from the ride below.

http://www.vimeo.com/4456616

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