BEN WICKHAM'S LES STABLES DAY 5
Ben spent a few days out in France on a training camp. He's produced a diary of how each day went, mixing up cycling, swimming a running. Ben is really upping his game for triathlons for 2018.
Monday. Big day. I rolled out of bed to find basically every muscle I owned, hurt.
Today we swim, run and bike hard. First off it's a open water set in the River Dronne. Actually this isn't all that hard, as it's only 1500m and downstream, and I sat on my friend Michel's feet. He's a perfect draft as he's a little bit quicker than me and it's great practice to hold a faster swimmer. We’re watched over by Mark from Les Stables and his dog BonBon. The best bit of this day is getting to the end of the swim and immediately hitting the local cafe for coffee and croissants. Not to mention it's a beautiful swim from start to finish.
A quick turnaround after we got home before it was out again to the Les Stables track for some 400m reps. Mark runs a technique session, but I've done it so many times I tend to dip out and run reps. The track is 800m and on a hill so it's a hard rep. Not to mention the 30deg heat and build up of fatigue. These were ugly, but I got them done.
Just time for some recovery pasta before it's off out on the bike again to Lisle, and the hill rep set. It's a couple of km up the hill and you ride it in a progressive gear to practice both high cadence and eventually racing up the hill. You also get a good bit of downhill practice in there too. With the Wahoo showing 34deg today every one of these was a slog. Traditionally we race back to the village sign of Bourdellies, but with a few leaving early and Zack drafting behind cars to take the KOM, the pack was somewhat underpowered. I went for a long solo effort to see what I could do, but was soon reeled in and passed by Dave, an ex-pro more than 20yrs my senior who’s wheel could barely hold. You get a lot of that around these parts.
After such a huge day there's no point in heading home, so we stopped in the local bar and proceeded to sink as many Grande Bieres as we could until the BBQ and local band showed up. At some point just before midnight we made the long slow kilometre walk in the pitch dark back to base and collapsed for the night.