Hi all
Well yesterday we had the opening TT, 3.8ks around the city of Xining. Downhill out and uphill back. Doesn’t sound too hard, and under normal circumstances it would be like any other short TT, just a few minutes of pain and it’s all over. Well this one was AGONY. As we are at 2200m in altitude there a pretty high lack of oxygen, so instead of your legs burning and lungs burning it more or less just felt like someone was tearing your lungs out the side with a fishing gaff or something. Not the nicest feeling. Any way I got around in 4.55 which was alright, nothing spectacular and finished 108th of a field of 130 I think. However the great news of the day was that David our team leader was 2nd!!
Lucky for us he wasn’t 1st or it would have been a hard day on the front trying to defend against the 7 man euro boys (unfortunately we only have 5 guys) The TT was won by Alex Rasmussen (no relation to the Michael Rasmussen) This guy is one of Denmark’s top in the pursuit and one of the best in the world. I’d say Wesley Gough is pretty familiar with him.
3rd place went to Rock Racings Oscar Sevelia.
Stage 2
Today’s stage looked nasty on the stage profile uphill for about 85k before a rolling false flats descent down to Qinghai lake. It started off not too bad, and after getting the inside info from Tyler Hamilton the night before I tried staying as close to Oscar or Hamilton as possible, proved a bit harder than in theory as these guys are unbelievably awesome at bike handling, I was following Oscar and next thing he’s three bike lengths in front of me, he‘d gone through a gap that just didn’t exist!!! don’t no how they do it Any way the first 50k was pretty crazy really, and I just went about my job of making sure the boys were at the front, had to give Dave a rev up and tow him to the front once. After 50k it was time to get the boys some water which was pretty straight forward. Then time to settle in for when the road really ramps up.
I’ve found it quite hard at the altitude because your heart rate goes in to the red zone so fast but drops very slowly. So I spent a lot of time keeping an eye on my heart rate and trying to keep it as low as possible as not to blow. I found the best way is to roll over a much bigger gear than normal as this way you use your muscles more than your lungs and I could control the heart better. The further up the climb we got the harder this became, and I found I was on the back really struggling. Not the best time to be in the red as the pace was starting to get pushed up. People were letting wheels go and I had to concentrate hard to stay in touch with out popping, eventually I came right and started riding through the groups.
We’ll we formed a bunch over the top and pretty much just lapped the last 60k home. I was pretty wreaked come the finish. Not sure about where I am as I haven’t seen any results yet, buts it’s not really a worry as I’m here to help the boys as much as possible, learn as much as possible and get strong!!!
Also I have attached a photo from the TT for you all
Josh
