A Few Days in Mallorca

A few days have past here in Mallorca in a pretty quick fashion. Several good days of training, a rest day today, and back on it tomorrow. The weather has been good, with the exception of it getting coldish and windy today. I believe it is expected to stay similar for the upcoming days, but hopefully dry.

Yesterday we did the first hard efforts and "tests" of the year. It was a five hour ride with a couple 20 minute, high cadence, pace line rotations. Despite the relative low intensity, the high cadence and general length combined with the inevitable ramping up of speed/intensity lead to a pretty hard effort. Following the first of the paceline efforts, we headed toward a climb where we would do the first race type effort. It started out with joking and general lack of want to really go full gas, but being professional we did get it up to a full effort and by the end of it, there was a solid 5km effort in which Tiago took the win for our first race of the season! After the descent, we pedaled for a little bit and then did our second rotation. This one was a little more taxing given the prior efforts, but still manageable. We headed over to the San Salvador for our last effort and rode up it at a more tempo-ish pace. It was just enough to tax the legs a bit. Another hour of pedaling and we were home for some well deserved lunch.

Today I woke up ravaged with hunger. After eating half of a protein bar and messing with my computer a bit, Sam and I headed to breakfast. The hunger quenched, I could now get on with the day. There was no specific training or team time today, but I decided I just wanted to head out. I ended up starting the ride with Tiago, Nelson, Fumiyuki, and Chris. After about 40 minutes, Chris and I stopped at a bike shop to look for a rain fender; the others went on. The shop told us they would have it in an hour, so we went and pedaled up San Salvador and had a coffee (coke for Chris of course). Despite the clouds and wind, the view was still pretty nice. On the descent, I got a front flat. It was pretty strange because it went from full to flat in a split second and with no puncture sound or anything. Despite the fact it happened as I entered a switchback, I avoided any trauma. After fixing it, we headed to get the fender and then home for the relaxation of rest day.

Everything else has been chill today. I got a massage. I also had a nice, longer phone conversation with Lisa; it was very enjoyable. Now it is dinner time to charge the batteries for the upcoming days of training. Ciao!