Dylan and I finished AVDP a few hours ago. I woke up this morning feeling better than I have since the Tour started (have I finally got over Stage 1?) - but that usually means the ride won’t go well. With intensity set on Focused (94% MAP), the stage was still tough, but I always felt on top of it and that I’d get through it.
At least for two of the intervals. The first, second and fifth we did blindfolded to help raise more money for the DPF. Those were…very tough. As Dylan said, when you lose one of your senses, the others get amplified and it seemed our pain sensors did most of the heavy lifting there! Jeez, that was hard – the inability to see how much time you have left meant you didn’t have anything to ‘look forward to.’ You just had to keep suffering and hope it would end soon.
This one had me teetering…swear I saw smoke coming from my quads! No blindfold needed to feel the pain! Made it through though and still rolling nuclear - going to push full throttle until I flame out.
We’ll, today’s the day I was dreading… thanks to work commitments tomorrow I have to do both stage 5 and stage 6 today, and they’re both ones I always struggle with.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever managed AVDP at 100%. Today no different, but thanks to the focussed option and MAP at 94, I made it through. Time will tell if I can rest enough for the next couple of hours for a crack at tbtitw
I barely made it through the first interval. I knew I wasn’t going to make it all the way through at 100%, but I was going to get as far as I could.
Then at a lower cadence I barely made it through the second. I tried to just keep pedaling and I made it.
The third had me dying and my legs were screaming and my cadence was dropping, but i just kept pedaling and just when I felt I was done, I barely made it.
Then I started the fourth interval at a higher cadence and tried to hold that as long as I could. I look up and I was barely 35 seconds in. My cadence dropped. I chewed my stem. I closed my eyes. I just kept pedaling. I thought I was toasted , but there was a short drop to tempo pace and then for the last minute I kept telling myself to just keep pedaling. And I did.
And then my son took pictures as I suffered through the fifth and final interval. And then I sprinted. And then! I had made it all the way through! By sheer force of will. At 100%.
