Etape du Tour survival: Preparing your head

Posted on 6 July 2010 by Alex Murray

Nothing to do with your choice of mandatory helmet (Giro Prolight is my current choice) but with the art of mentally preparing yourself for the event. It’s as important as your physical fitness to get your positive, winning attitude right and to know how to cope with the challenge.

There are some things you should know now about what your head will go through on the day.

  • Once the euphoria of starting has worn off and the first flat sections are done, you will spend the rest of the ride wondering why you are doing it
  • Your mind will tell you to stop frequently and repeatedly on the climbs and even on the flat bits
  • At some point you will enter a very dark place in your mind where you contemplate falling off to make it end
  • You will want to sit by the road and take a few minutes to ask “where is my mind?”
  • There will be an unexpected swelling of emotion when you cross the line which might make you want to cry

The distance can seem overwhelming but if it’s broken down into what Team Sky have started calling “phases” then it’s much easier to prepare yourself.

Phase One – Before the start

Don’t panic. Be meticulous in your preparation and making sure you have everything before you leave your hotel. If you lay it all out the night before and check it then you’ll worry less when you wake up at 4am.

Give yourself plenty of time to get to the start pens and find people you are riding with. Try to relax and stay alert to groups that look like they might be worth tagging on the back of for shelter and a fast tow through traffic in the opening sections of the ride.

Mostly, relax and enjoy. You’ve spent god knows how long getting ready for this so you might as well make the most of it.

Phase Two – Le Grand Depart

I’ve seen plenty of strategies saying “conserve your energy” and encouraging you to ride conservatively to the first climb. You can do this, but I think mentally trying to ride conservatively is more dangerous than taking things as they come.

The Col de Marie-Blanque is narrow – four bikes wide in places – and there’s several thousand riders trying to get up it. You need to get there as quickly as you can to avoid walking or being caught in a bottleneck.

Mentally prepare yourself to go a bit harder than you’d like in places to stay in big fast moving groups. Think about digging in the suitcase of courage to stay with a good group rather than sitting up at the first harsh breath drawn.

Phase Three – Col de Marie-Blanque

This will be tough, it will come as a shock to the system and you will have a bit of a panic. But remember: this is the toughest obstacle between you and the Tourmalet. The Col du Soulor is going to be hard, but nothing like as bad as the Marie-Blanque. Prepare to go hard and get over in a good time.

Don’t think you have to get over it quickly and go into panic mode. Stay calm, ride hard and try to avoid hitting your limit too early.

I’ve seen so many people fighting to go forward with panic in their eyes. Panic puts the heart rate up and that will affect how hard you can go. So: DON’T PANIC.

Phase Four – Relax and flow on the descent

You’ll be tired by this point so take a moment get your wits about you at the top, put on your jacket or gilet and refocus on getting down.

When you’re tired, you’ll tense up and big mountain descents deserve your full concentration. Try to relax your body so it acts like a shock absorber but keep you mind focused on reading the road ahead and looking for hazards and the best line through corners.

Resist the temptation to brake too much or worry about your speed creeping up beyond what you’re used to. Comfort braking on straights doesn’t help make the sped go away for very long and if you’re going a bit faster than usually you just need to take more care on the approach to corners.

Phase five – Onwards to the Col du Soulor

The big danger now is that after the Marie-Blanque you start thinking about saving something for the Tourmalet. You need to push on through the valley and the relatively easy early slopes of the Col du Soulor.

It would be easy to sit up a bit and start going backwards here so focus on breaking down each kilometre in a manageable time. Try to keep slippage to a minimum.

By now eating and drinking are things you’ll need to remind yourself constantly to do as they slip in the mental task list.

Phase six – Descend and prepare

You need to try and give yourself enough time to descend comfortably to the foot of the Tourmalet. If you’re chasing to make the cut it’s going to be tough and a bit hairy. Not good when you’re tired and hurting after 100km in the legs.

Eat at the top, drink on the descent and just mentally ready yourself to go all in on the Tourmalet. you need to get your tired mind cleared and ready to take on the beast.

Fight the rising panic/excitement and concentrate on getting to the final elimination point. Once you’re past there, take a moment to compose yourself and remind yourself to pace yourself.

It’s good to figure out how much time you’ve got and how hard you think you can go. Then push it from your mind and concentrate on just riding.

Phase seven – To the end

Even though the goal is in sight, you need to keep pushing yourself on mentally. I’ve seen guys give up on climbs with less than 300 metres to go simply because they didn’t think they could go any further.

Break down the Tourmalet into landmarks or time chunks and tick off each one as you achieve it. The time will pass more easily this way.

So that’s my final Etape guide. Good luck one and all. I’ve got to sort out my bike over the weekend. It’s developed a ticking noise near the bottom bracket which I want to get looked at before the Etape.

Posted in 2010, Etape du Tour, Fitness | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Etape du Tour survival: Food and drink

Posted on 30 June 2010 by Alex Murray

I’m no nutritionist but one thing I know is that lots of people get it wrong. And it’s just as easy to eat and drink too much as it is to take on too little.

Cyclefit have a great guide to the Etape which features some very informed stuff from Darren Barclay who is a nutrition expert and a pretty handy bike rider to boot. I thoroughly recommend you download the PDF.

Cyclefit’s Etape du Tour Guide 2010 (6Mb PDF)

To that I’ll add my not so expert advice.

Eat real food as far as possible

Energy gels and bars are all well and good but you can’t eat them for the whole ride. Real food tastes better and is easier on the stomach.

Team Sky nutritionist Nigel Mitchell has developed their strategy for Brad Wiggins and his gang:

“We developed a nutrition programme which was tested at the Giro d’Italia and it included high-carbohydrate foods such as paninis being consumed during the first half of every stage, followed by gels and energy drinks to keep the riders fuelled late on.” – Nutrition key for Tour test

So if you can, snaffle some pastries from the breakfast buffet, make yourself some sort of roll with a half baguette and crush it flat. They are fine sources of energy and much more bearable at six in the morning than high sugar bars.

Last time I stood in the start pens nibbling away a a ham and jam baguette which lasted me well into the first hour of the ride. Psychologically it was easier to eat that than start on the bars and gels which would be lunch.

At the feed stations run yourself up a sandwich from the bits available and grab the fresh fruit, jelly sweets and cereal bars to supplement what you’ve got in your pockets. There is loads of stuff on offer which will break up the monotony of flavours.

If you have a “favourite” energy bar, take a few different flavours that you can stomach because one thing is for sure: after five hours, you really aren’t going to want a sixth one of the same flavour.

Two other great options which I’ll be carrying are Bassett Jelly Babies and Marks and Spencer’s Percy Pigs. Both are a great way to get plenty of energy on board in nice flavoursome chunks rather than trying to fit an entire bar in our mouth in one go.

I worked out that a handful of about five jelly babies provides you with about half the carbohydrate intake you need in an hour. Now tell me you aren’t thinking about putting a bag of Bertie’s best in your pocket.

Drink but don’t drown

While eating is pretty easy to regulate and you can usually manage to scoff something, no matter how you are feeling, drinking can prove much more challenging.

There’s a point you’ll reach where you don’t feel like drinking any more fluid. At that point you must fight that feeling and keep on taking regular sips from your bottle.

Try no to binge on your bottle by necking it in one go, rather try to take regular mouthfuls every 10 minutes or so. You’ll disrupt your breathing less this way and avoid bloating your stomach with fluid.

I’ve tended to take a 750ml bottle with plain water and then two 500ml ones with energy drink in (one in a bottle cage, the other in the middle back pocket) to give a balance. There are times when you don’t need to take on more energy drink, just a bit of water, and I’ve found this helps stop the sugar overload and deadness of palate.

Sachets of energy drink powder are increasingly common and a much less messy way to carry refills than measuring out your own and bagging them up. They’re also much less likely to attracts the attentions of customs officers on your travels.

Remember: a 500ml bottle of energy drink plus a decent bar/snack in each hour is as much energy as your body can handle.

It’s easy to remember: one 500ml bottle an hour is roughly as much fluid as you need, any more is pushing you towards drowning your system with water which will inhibit performance. On a hot day, you may need more but that’s a good baseline to follow.

Carbohydrate, electrolyte, vitamin

Electrolyte is really important in distance events. Loss of salts leads to cramp and poor performance. So choose an energy drink that replenishes these effectively for you.

Get your carbohydrate from mixed sources, not just your bottles and not just your pockets.

The feast of the night before

Certainly you should eat well the night before the ride but don’t force-feed yourself like a Foie Gras Goose. Your body is not going to suddenly develop extra capacity for digestion.

Have that extra slice of cake you’ve been avoiding for the last few months. You’ve earned it and you’ll burn it off by the Marie Blanque.

Drink some tonic water (gin optional) as the quinine seems to help stop cramp. I usually have a bottle of Schweppes the night before a big event, without the commensurate gin intake.

I’ve not told you which gels, bars or drinks to take simply because there is no one “best” option. The one you use has to suit your needs and palate.

Posted in 2010, Etape du Tour | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Etape du Tour survival: Your clothing and kit

Posted on 20 June 2010 by Alex Murray

So we’ve done the bike, now to deal with the other big area of equipment: what to wear for the big day.

The most important elements to get right are those that will have most contact during the ride: shorts and shoes.

Shorts

Shorts are a deeply personal affair for numerous reasons including their contents and their fit. What works for me won’t necessarily work for you because my sit bones and thighs aren’t yours.

What does generally hold true is that this is an item which rewards a bit of extra spending. If you are someone who finds a cheap pair of shorts that fits like a second skin and gives you the padding and comfort you need, then you are truly blessed.

Otherwise, I’d suggest that you should be looking to spend upwards of 50GBP on a pair. How high you want to go will depend on how high you need to go to find the desired level of fit and comfort.

Shoes

Again, this comes down to you and nobody else. One thing I’ve found is that a shoe that is comfortable in milder weather might not be so in hotter conditions. I’ve got my old Specialized S-Works Boas that I’ll be taking with me as well as my Bont A1s to cover such eventualities.

Getting custom footbeds done for your shoes really helps. I’ve got one pair that gets transferred into whichever shoes I’m riding and which give me excellent support because they are made for my feet. You can probably get some done for around 50GBP and the investment is worth it.

Jersey

I say this regardless of the event: DON’T WEAR JERSEYS YOU HAVEN’T EARNED. There’s something fundamentally wrong about wearing a classification jersey if you haven’t earned it.

Here’s why: A pro gets a bloody hefty fine for not wearing the jersey they are entitled to, at least 1500 Swiss Francs. Just remember that the next time you think about wearing something like the rainbow or polka dot jersey replica.

There are literally hundreds of jerseys on the market that look good, wear well and are suitable for riding the Etape. Light colours are recommended, white if you are happy for it to be nowhere near as clean at the end as the start. They’ll reflect the heat better. There’s a wide array to choose from on the market.

If the ride is as hot as it tend to be then it needs to be made from a lightweight material but one which holds its shape well and won’t sag when the pockets are full as they will be. Full zip or half zip depends on whether you fancy displaying your pasty chest to the passing Pyrenean mountain goats.

Talking of pockets, it needs to have plenty of space in them and be accessible. Try a few on to find out which one works for you as almost every manufacturer positions them differently and some are more accessible than others, depending on your size and flexibility.

Traditionally three pockets is the style but there’s a few out there now with two. I like three for the ease of segmentation it offers – solid food and money in one, waterbottle or gilet in the middle, gels and powders in the other.

My recommendations are to look up something from Rapha or Shutt Velo Rapide for simple effective designs.

If you want something retro then try Prendas. Pro team kits are allowed if they are no longer an active jersey. That is the only exception to the “no pro jerseys” rule I will allow.

Helmet

As you’re required to wear one, it’s worth spending the cash on the lightest, most comfortable one you can afford. That will be dictated by the size and shape of your noggin and the depth of your wallet.

People who fit Giro helmets tend to have a different shape to those that fit Specialized helmet or Bell helmets.

Personally I’d be happier not wearing one but, as it is, I’ve invested in the Giro Prolight which is incredibly comfortable and light enough not to feel like a burden on the longer days.

Gloves

As a main contact point these are again somewhere that finding the right pair can make a big difference. Look for something lightweight and which isn’t going to feel like you’re wearing clown hands.

I’ve got a preference for classic leather mitts and I’m still wearing the same Rapha criterium gloves that I rode my first Etape in. But I do like to ride without mitts at times so I’m investigating something a bit lighter on the backs of the hand at the moment, preferably without the annoying velcro fasteners.

Baselayer

A good baselayer is one of the best pieces of kit you can invest in. It’ll help reduce road rash if you fall and removes that horrid clinging dampness that jerseys can suffer from.

On descents it acts as a bit more protection from the chill and on the climbs it’ll draw the sweat away from the skin.

I like the merino wool ones but lots of people swear by the Defeet mesh ones. Most manufacturers feature them in their range, so there’s no excuse for not getting one.

And no, they don’t cause you to overheat.

Gilet/jacket

Unless it’s extremely wet you’re only going to need something to keep the windchill off your torso on the descents. Don’t waste time taking arm and knee warmers that take up pocket space.

Take something that packs small and even then don’t waste pocket space with it. Instead, shove it up the back of your jersey where the elastic and contents of the pockets will keep it in place. If you’re worried about it slipping out, then shove it in the top of your bib shorts. After about ten minutes riding you’ll forget it’s there.

I’m going to take my Montane Velo which packs down to the size of an apple but I may also take a look at what else I can get my hands on in the event of wet weather.

Posted in 2010, Clothing, Etape du Tour | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment