Dan Martin
B reaking with tradition this season, I decided to make a pilgrimage that many others are making as part of their job as a professional cyclist. Namely, I decided to try a stint up at altitude. The team suggested it could be a good idea in the name of my Giro preparations and although the benefits of riding in thin air are well documented, the main reason I agreed to do it was the isolation and the chance to spend two weeks away from the chores and distractions of being at home. Being up a remote mountain for 15 days, there’s nothing to do but to eat, sleep and ride.
Throw in the promise of excellent team support with massage, mechanic and a new-to-the-game director sportif in Robbie Hunter following us round in the car, and it was an attractive option. I have Alex Howes and Phil Gaimon for company up here and apart from the two days of white-out blizzard we had, it’s been the perfect place for a training camp.
Up here at 2,350m there is a full athletes’ training centre with outdoor and indoor running tracks, a 50m pool and a dozen basketball courts, so although it’s probably not going to happen, we could mix up the training any way we wanted. For me, the star attraction isn’t the camp itself. Neither is it the abundance of great training roads, with long and steady, or short and steep climbs. Personally, it’s the fact that there is a town up here, so when boredom strikes we can wander down the hill to a bustling ski village and get a pizza or beer. Balance is the key to life after all and I always knew that the whole
Some times in cycling you just have to laugh at wh at we go th rough – even wh en th e mus cles in your face are st ruggling to work up th e correct facial express ion
complete isolation thing was never going to be for me.
Anyway, by the time you read this you will have all seen the results of my first trip up high. I head straight from here to the Ardennes Classics, so fingers crossed that all goes well. I stress that, because so far this season hasn’t really gone to plan, not at all in fact. I went into the first races with no pressure to perform, except of course my personal competitiveness. Thinking ahead to the Giro d’Italia waiting for me further down the road, I knew that if I trained to peak at Tirreno-Adriatico and Volta a Catalunya, May would prove to be a very long month. That said, I got sick before Tirreno and then had a problem with my stomach during the race as well, perhaps a relapse of the previous week’s illness. This meant the legs were not there to defend my crown at Catalunya and while it was a great experience to ride around with the number 1 on my back for a week, the weather didn’t exactly play ball. It hadn’t rained for five weeks before the race rolled into town but sure enough, the worst week of weather for at least six months hit us and we battled freezing temperatures, rain, high winds and even snow, all on different stages.
At the finish line at Vallter 2000 it was two degrees below zero! My face was frozen, which even at the time I found quite amusing. Some times in cycling you just have to laugh at what we go through – even when the muscles in your face are struggling to work up the correct facial expression.
The conditions were just ridiculous and while the winner Joaquim Rodríguez certainly earned his victory, you do have to wonder how much the weather affected the race. With slow-motion racing, where the borderline-hypothermic riders were so cold they could barely pedal, was it really sport? It’s a real shame the race was robbed of its showdown between cycling’s big guns but onwards and upwards, and fingers crossed that is the only race this year to fall unlucky with the weather!