Run 7½km & Erg 8km (inc. CTC 8×500m)

Lunchtime. run 7½km/35 steady easy, HR 149(159)

PM. Erg 8km inc. CTC(http://www.c2ctc.com/) 8×500m, 3min rec. (at Brookes gym, Model C)

2½km w/u

1. 1:41.8 r31, HR147(162)
2. 1:41.8 r32, HR142(161)
3. 1:41.9 r31, HR143(160)
4. 1:42.1 r31, HR142(162)
5. 1:41.9 r31, HR145(164)
6. 1:42.2 r32, HR144(164)
7. 1:42.4 r33, HR146(165) blowing!
8. 1:43.8 r32, HR143(163) gone!. Average 1:42.2

1½km w/d

I didn’t look forward to that at all. Didn’t seem to get my HR too high, although that’s been a bit of a feature of my hard efforts lately. Either I’m overtrained, or getting fitter. Probably a bit of both.

Crawled home, washed my bike for tomorrow’s trip up north. The weather doesn’t look too promising.

TdF positives
There have been three EPO positives already on this tour. This is good, kicking out the cheats. Word is that Ricco tested positive for a newer generation of EPO, so maybe he thought there wasn’t a test for it and it was undetectable. The testers are being much more cautious about letting the public know what they can test for now, so they can catch the cheats red-handed. I am also wondering whether the race being held under French, rather than UCI, jurisdiction this year is having an effect. You can always suspect the UCI of warning riders of testing and trying to hush-up positives – after all it has it’s own (commercial) interests to protect – but the French authorities have been much more proactive with their testing proceedures over the last decade. and maybe we’re seeing the effect of this.

Up until now, the positives have come from domestiques, so you could put it down to individual carelessness with drugs, but Ricco is a team star, which hints at a wider usage within the team, so no wonder that his whole team withdrew today.

Training makes me fat
I am putting in loads of hours at the moment, and despite not eating more than usual, the weight’s piling on. My watch strap feels a bit tight today. What’s going on?

72.4kg