The art of managing fatigue

Over the 24 weeks since I started racing, back in February, I’ve started 27 races including time trials. It doesn’t sound massive compared to the number of race days a pro has, but each race is hard. Most of the time it’s all about survival, having the legs to make the split over the final climb, or working hard to control a race for a team leader. After each race there is a build-up of fatigue, thus meaning some days in the mid-week you can still be feeling pretty tired on the bike. Eventually this caught up with me, meaning I was struggling to finish some race, or just not having the form to do anything in the races. At the end of May, after a horrendous weekend at the Coupe de France, I had a word with the DS and it was decided it was best for me to come home, reset, train, and come back stronger. I’m not sure of the reasons for why I was feeling the way I was feeling. Maybe it was the cumulative fatigue, some sort of virus, or even something simpler. Even a blood test didn’t tell me the answers. One day id be feeling terrible on the bike, the next day id be flying.

June was a pretty empty month racing wise; I did a very solid 3 week block of training of which at the end of it I was feeling strong. I sorted out my TT bike (again) and set a mini goal for the national TT champs. Not being much of a tester I didn’t put any pressure on myself, just using it for learning and as a benchmark for something to work on for the future. I’d like to say thank you to Frazer for letting me borrow his power meter, but also no thank you. It underead so much, my average heart rate was almost in line with the average power! Almost… no wonder you don’t use it anymore!

After sheparding Harrison Wood round the flatlands of the Fens, and introducing my dad to love island, we headed off to the semi-local National champs in Norfolk. Apparently it was a scenic 190km loop, but we didn’t get much time to look across the coastline, it was pretty flat out all day long. Having not raced for a while, i hadn’t a clue what to expect from my legs, but coming towards the end I still had something left which left me thinking I could’ve done more. But I was happy to finish and am happy with my legs. I threw Otley GP in during the week after, needless to say having not done a race under 2 ½ hours this year, a 1 hour thrash round otley town centre with 100 other guys didn’t end well for me. Let’s just say my warm up was the same length as my race!

Now back to France, the temperature is around 10 degrees warmer than it was at home, meaning it took a bit of getting used to. In the town I stayed with my parents in while they were on holiday, I found a stupidly steep climb and smashed it up. Looking on strava after I saw a Pro race had finished up the top. I did not get the KOM. Anyway, I could be wrong; I don’t think I know a pro with the surname Pinot? Must’ve been on an E-bike. First race in France was the town GP. I did my trademark roll of the front from the gun, got in a small break. Came back together, the race exploded, the race was then controlled, and then I cramped up with 2km to go.

So now I’ve just seen the profile for next week’s Tour d’Auverge. I can only describe the shape of it as an old Toberlone, without the spaces in between the rises and falls.