Girona training camp, day 6. I might have done something wrong

 Very rarely I go for a ride without a master plan. For me it is part of the fun. 

This time the masterplan was: “Let’s attack Ed in every single ramp/climb and then take him up Rocacorba”.

Yes, I know. It didn’t look like a very sensible plan. But my hypothesis was: If I attack him hard enough and enough times he might crack. Not sure on what I was basing my hypothesis on, last three months I’ve been focusing on riding long and steady, still, somehow, I believed I was going to react better to lots of short and intense intervals.

Now, anyone that knows Ed and knows me would say that is a silly plan. Brave, very brave but very silly. No chance it would work.

But those would have been speculations. We didn’t know for sure.

Well, now we know for sure. It didn’t work. That is how science works. That is how knowledge is created. Javier attacking Ed in every single ramp and climb before Rocacorba didn’t crack Ed. In fact it almost cracked Javier. There you have another piece of knowledge.

Javier being as clever as he is (despite his silly hypothesis) realised he was about to crack around km 40 and guessed Ed was not about to crack. So, once on that point, Javier changed his master plan,

The new master plan was: “Forget Ed, focus on staying with Denis and Richard and beat them both in the last 100m to the top of Rocacorba”.

Full of confidence that I was going to be able to execute that plan I sat on Denis’ wheel from the beginning of the climb. As very often happens he was climbing at a rhythm that had me on my limit all the time. At some point we (Denis with me on his wheel) opened a gap with Richard. Easier sprint I thought. 

Not for long though, two kilometres and a half from the climb, in one of the steep sections Denis stepped on the bike and opened a bit of a gap. I tried to close it but that took me over my limit. I had to ease up. The gap grew bigger.

Quick, new master plan!!! “Don’t try to hold to Denis’ wheel but keep pushing, you’ll get him in the last ramps”

Well, that plan didn’t work very well either. In fact what happened is Richard passed me at full speed in a flat section of the climb. Denis was not in sight.

Ok, forget Denis. New masterplan is get Richard and beat him.

I knew a steep section was coming and I knew I could do well there. And I did. I got to Richard, I passed him and I even saw Denis up the road. 

Change of plans then. Get to Denis slowly (and silently) and get him on the line.

Thirty seconds later the gap to Denis had grown bigger and the gap to Richard had shrinked. It seemed like the plan wasn’t going to work.

Ok, no worries. New plan: Focus on keeping Richard behind you. Third at the top of Rocacorba is a great result.

A shame Richard sprinted up the hill and passed me around 200m before the climb. The gap he opened grew so quickly he got there 30 seconds faster than me.

30 seconds slower than Richard, 48 seconds slower than Denis and 5:11 slower than Ed. None of my plans did work that well really.

Half depressed I found consolation in knowing that I was leading the sprinters classification by a great margin. At the end of the day it is the only classification we all care about.

The problem was that “the other sprinter” TY took the sprint to the lunch stop in Banyoles. As soon as I got the news (I was waaaay behind) I thought it was a fluke.

But I was wrong. After lunch we went for a ride around the lake and TY took the Banyoles sprint. Again!!!

I didn’t worry too much. I hadn’t spotted the sign so it was more of an opportunistic sprint than anything else (one of yours Will).

Still the fact was that “the other sprinter” TY had taken two sprints in a row. Seeing him sprinting up hill against me and Ed rang all the alarms in my brain.

For good reason. The next sprint was a head to head sprint between him and me and he took it. Fair and square. 

He even had time to take another one as we were approaching Girona. Very worrying.

Masterplan for tomorrow? I’m going to stick like glue to “the other sprinter” TY’s wheel. My hypothesis being he won’t notice I’m sticking to his wheel and I’ll take all the sprints.

I’ll report tomorrow on how that worked out.