TOBY RADCLIFFE

Professional Ironman Triathlete
http://tobyradcliffe.com

Tuesday 22 May 2007

Italian hills

Italy was awesome. Got some really solid training in, met some great folks and got a great tan :) The Nove Colli at the weekend was fun. I was trying to be disciplined by doing my long ride and long run mid-week so that I could just do the 140km ride as my hill ride... the aim was to be too tired to carry on to the 200km ride (9 hills instead of just 4), to keep my training more specific. Took the first few hours easy, letting the crowds of cyclists (11000 took part) dictate the pace so by the time i got to the turn off in a leisurely 4 hours, it was clear that I was going to carry on. The crowds cleared a bit so the pace could pick up a bit, but my slow descending (much improved on last year, but still not so hot) and a TT bike made the downhills long! Finished off the day in about 7:45 which was a nice solid training day, and importantly not feeling too wasted!!! The day after was a bit different... casual ride to a wine cellar for a long lunch. Somehow we covered 75kms (including another stop for ice cream!) ... the wine certainly helps!

Managed to get back to the UK thanks to some nifty flight rescheduling by Mr Trew to avoid the Italian air traffic controllers strikes!! Overall very good camp, got my motivation back post return to UK. Lots of great ideas for training and thinking it may be time to upgrade the bike....

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