A world of pain.

The rolling road to Thredbo

More rolling....

Swapping turns on the way to Charlotte pass .... cruising through Perisher ski station....

The Brief:

3 days  ~ 290km total

6000m total climbing

13 hours in the saddle

205W NP average for entire weekend

The long story:

Travelled down to Jindabyne 5 hrs south of Sydney for a training camp with my Cycling Club. Arrived Friday afternoon and was convinced by a fellow member to ride up Charlotte Pass a 32km climb to the highest point in Australia. The Gradient ranges from 5 to 7% and is there is little to no respite. We cruised up in a leisurely 2hrs and the legs were feeling fine. We rolled back home in a bit over three and a half hours.

Day 2 was a club ride from Jindabyne to Dead Horse Gap via Thredbo. The 43km to Thredbo are _TOUGH_ dead road surface and lots of climbing. Once at Dead Horse gap we descended  down the other side towards Tom Groggin to begin our climb back up to the summit of Dead Horse. This is a 18km climb where the first 7km average over 10%. I decided not to descend all the way, and miss this section. Still a 10km climb with gradients around 8% was enough to put a fair bit of sting in the legs. A quick stop a Thredbo for food and coffee and it was time for the fast ride back to Jindabyne. I was again ultra cautious about keeping the pace down to Z1-Z2 levels as to build my endurance base. Rolled home in 5 hours for a total of 110km.

Day 3 was a repeat of day 1 up Charlotte Pass. This time down with the club. The pace was a little higher in the range of Z2-Z3 and I was happy to keep this pace all the way up. The legs were fine although my ITB's were starting to get quite tight after all this climbing. Once again 90km done in around three and a half hours.

What I learnt:

1. My endurance has improved significantly. There is no way I could normally do these kinds of rides back to back.

2. My climbing threshold power is poor. This is an area I'm going to focus on in the coming months. I am going to begin some hill intervals, and some specific strength sessions.

3. > 300km weeks is approaching my structural limit and I'll need to address this with some Chiro sessions and some core strength session in the form of pilates/yoga.

I Hope to be able to repeat a weekend like this somewhere mountainous around Easter time which is 6 weeks away. The goal will be to climb at a much higher threshold power every day without fatigue.