Pros: Embrun to Valloire, 208km - Mountains

Me: 68km, 5m/15m/20m/20m SST

Stunning stage last night, starting at Embrun and then running through the Ubaye valley to Col de Vars, which is the first ever mountain climb I did, with Kevin, back in 2010. Some odd behaviour from Movistar, riding on the Izouard and taking a few minutes out of the gap to their own teammate, Quintana, who ended up winning the stage.

If they’d let other teams ride Quintana could have ended up right in the mix over the last two mountain stages, but now he’s two minutes behind the favourites with no chance of getting any more significant time back.

For me, I opted to do the ride indoors as it was pretty much all intervals. Tough ride in the end. y legs felt tired at the stage, so you can see how the longer “easy” rides can be used to sap the legs a bit before the mountains. The final interval was hard going and left me thinking I should have adopted the pros technique of taking it easy most of the climbs. Looking at a few Strava files, it seems they were only riding at around 70-75% instead of the 90% I set myself.

Might try that tomorrow if they take it easy again tonight!

Me: 55.6km, 1h 32m, 1078 calories, 111 TSS.

Pro: 216.4km, 6h 5m, 5127 calories, 326 TSS

Weight: 91.7kg - CTL: 46.9 - TSB: -17.4