PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

As an aging, decrepit, crusty old geezer, I take solace from helping cyclists find their inner performance.  Regardless of whether it's a new racer, or a seasoned elite competitor, it's always a joy to help a new athlete reach a level of fitness never before imagined.


This past year, I was very fortunate to work with an extremely hard working individual that was taking on the Haute Route - Alps, a seven day timed race up and over the Alps.  After 8 months of hard training and quantifiable fitness improvements, it was off to Europe.  Senior Living Magazine even wrote an article on this exceptionally talented man!

I've pasted an email below that put a big smile on my grizzled old face!

Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2014 10:22 AM
To: Allan P
Subject: Week of Aug 23

Al

I've had a semi relaxing day with my wife wondering the streets and water front of Nice. When I

packed up my bike and stuffed all the bits and pieces of the past week into the spaces around the frame, the bike ride had officially ended. 

I want to thank you for your time and expertise in making what turned out to be a over the top dream of mine come true. One year ago when I decided this was to be the year to take on this adventure I had no idea of what a multi-day stage race would be like. I had only done small local day rides and few races which gave me limited skills and insight into what lay beyond. If it had not been for your professional knowledge and your friendship I know I would have cracked more than a few times, and that was on the first day.            

I kept thinking of the work we did on Westport when the grade was more than 15%. It kept ringing through my head as I pushed myself up Ventoux. I was worried that I hadn't done a lot of climbing in preparation for the Alps and didn't know if the threshold work had done anything to keep me from blowing up after a few long hard kms. But just as you had planned I was strong and most of the time able to come back and go hard and stronger time and time again. I grew to have faith in my fitness and ability to go the distance as I did on a tough climb over col de Madeleine and the Glandon. The letter you sent us about mental toughness was huge, day after day, it allowed me to focus on the support I had back home and not allow me to let anyone down, more importantly I didn't let myself down.

 I started out  thinking I would be just riding along with the pack while the other GS guys were racing far ahead, it turned out that once I got over the first timing mat I was going as hard as I could and as long as I could, always wanting to move up in the GC as well as my age class. It was a real race for me and that will always be one of the highlights of the week.

On the morning of the last day I was 54 sec behind 4th place ( in my age class), I had been down over 5 min the day before and didn't feel good about my dropping in the standings. At breakfast the TNA boys talked up the potential for a 4th place finish and that I needed some domestiques to shepherd me to the line. I was entertained by their support and joking around. On the third hill of the day I had gone way too hard and was floundering on the flats just before the top. I was loosing time and needed to get over the top to recover, I was dying.  Up comes the 4 lads behind me and Wilf starts to push me along several times till I have enough gas to reach the top, get a running bottle change and drive down into the next valley. Those guys were life savers and I really appreciated their help. That was a pivotal point in the day.

Now it's holiday time and later time to start thinking what we can do next year with my new fitness and experience. 

A lot of people helped me but I want to let you know that I may have done the pedalling but you contributed in an immeasurable way help me reach my goal.

Thanks,