Primal Odyssey

Optygen.

Training While Asleep. Well with the latest pro cyclist receiving bans for testing positive I’ve decided to break the news on my new… LEGAL, secret weapon. For the past 5 weeks I have been taking Optygen form First Endurance. After having a chat over a coffee to a few local elite riders that happen to mention in passing that there heart rates and recovery had improved while taking Optygen HP.

My ears pricked up… what I thought, I can improve my VO2 Max and recovery while sleeping (my preferred training method). I hit the 1st endurance website to learn more about this wonder drug. After reading the marketing blurb on both Optygen and Optygen HP I decided to kick off trying out the Optygen brand. Basically I couldn’t see the value in the HP brand as it was twice the price and an unknown product to me that I was trailing out.

I found a great deal on EBay at $10 off retail and in my home town. I picked up my first two bottles of 90 capsules each. I was underway on my new quest to train in my sleep! I was informed that I would not see any improvement or noticeable difference for the first 3 weeks and not to expect a huge change in performance. The news was that it is not going to give you wings but you’ll notice that you can work harder for longer and the recovery time will improve.

So I was a little sceptical going into this “experiment” to say the least. Knowing my current work load and lack of time to put more than 4 hours a week together I knew seeing any improvement with little training was near impossible.

It was straight into maintenance mode which comprised of shoving 6 tablets into your mouth each day for the first seven days. I was glad to see the initial week behind me. Now to the proof of the pudding.
After 5 weeks “on the gear” I can tell you this. My average heart rate is down, where I used to sit at around the 150-155 mark on a flat I’m now around the 137-142. Please note this hasn’t taking into account changing weather patterns. All rides have been conducting on dry roads, the only weather patterns I don’t take into account is wind and heat. My recovery time for my HR to drop after putting in a stink had improved out of site, after easing off the pedals the HR drops by about 20 bpm in no time at all.

Over all I’m giving it the thumbs up and an 8/10 rating so far. I’m now looking to actually start training and hoping to hit over 250-300k’s a week for a few weeks to see what takes place. Watch this space. I’m even starting to look into a coach… yes and Pro with proven track record that can be traced and provided a dedicated programs. Now only if I could dedicate the time.

Now to cover my arse: in no way do I profess to the above being at all scientific, these are only my thoughts on the product. I have not received payment nor do I seek to in regards to Optygen. Please research all details of any supplement you wish to take and see your doctor before doing so.

Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré 2008

June 8, 2008 - June 15, 2008
Le Pontet (Avignon) - Grenoble (1092.7 Km)

After watching an interview with Levi on VeloNews.tv, this year Dauphiné Libéré will be Astana’s final one finger salute to the Tour de France and other cycling bodies. The three riders from Astana to take part will be Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer and Maxim Iglinsky. Quite a tidy team of climbers.

News this morning on VeloNews, it also looks like Astana may just get an invertation to this year Giro d’Italia which was considered off the cards at the beginning of the season.

As the Dauphiné Libéré is only two weeks out to the start of the Tour De France there are a number of big names that will be racing the Dauphiné Libére as a final check on how their form is looking heading into the biggest of Grand Tours.

Dauphiné Libéré 2008 Race Route

The Teams & Riders
Silence-Lotto (BEL): Cadel Evans, Yaroslav Popovych, Volodymyr Bileka
Quick Step (BEL): Tom Boonen, Gert Steegmans, Carlos Barredo
Team CSC (DEN): Alexander Kolobnev, Chis Anker Sorensen, Inigo Custa
Caisse d’Epargne (ESP): Alejandro Valverde, Oscar Pereiro, Luis Sanchez
Euskaltel-Euskadi (ESP): Samuel Sanchez, Mikel Astarloza, Haimar Zubeldia
Saunier Duval-Scott (ESP): Juan Cobo, Angel Gomez Marchante
AG2R (FRA): Vladimi Efimkin, John Gadret, Cyril Dessel
Bouygues Telecom (FRA): Pierrick Fedrigo, Laurent Lefevre
Crédit Agricole (FRA): Thor Hushovd, Patrice Halgand
Cofidis (FRA): David Moncoutié, Sylvain Chavanel, Samuel Dumoulin
Française des Jeux (FRA): Philippe Gilbert, Sandy Casar, Rémy Di Grégorio
Gerolsteiner (GER): Heinrich Haussler, Sébastian Lang
High Road (USA): Bradley Wiggins, Michael Rogers
Team Milram (USA): Igor Astarloa, Andriy Grivko, Niki Terpstra
Lampre (ITA): Mattéo Bono, Paolo Bossoni, Marzio Bruseghin
Liquigas (ITA): Manuel Beltran, Léonardo, Bertagnolli, Enrico Franzoi
Rabobank (NED): Robert Gesink, Juan Antonio Flecha
Astana (KAZ): Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, Maxim Iglinsky

Beijing Road Race Profile

With the Olympics on its final countdown I decided to go on the hunt for information around the road race course, in particular the race profile. I have read and interview that Evans gave about the course and was keen to have a look at some finer details of what lay ahead.

You would think that the Chinees would have a pretty smick looking website… It looks good but when you start to look for details… let’s just give it a 2/10, it’s written in Chinglish (no offence meant to anyone but I was over it by this point). A lot of propagator and very little real content. They built the wall so why not an informative site?

The hunt went on… from what I can tell there is still some conjecture around the actual race distance. The information I did find was this, and my I add that it was released in 2006 (I kid you not!)

The course starts near the Forbidden City and heads to the Great Wall of China. During the first, flat 80km, racers will pass Tiananmen Square. Near the Great Wall, the climbing begins in earnest. Racers are slated to tackle six or seven laps of a 24km circuit that climbs 520m per lap. Nothing is definite yet, organizers await UCI approval for the course.

The course sounds like a scenic ride that anyone would enjoy and then I came across this bit of info.

The Beijing Olympic men’s road race will be staged thirteen days after the Tour de France on August 9th (women’s road race August 10th) and the road time trials for both men and women on August 13th.

My frustration continued the longer I searched, plenty of news about Evans and Rogers snaring a 1 – 2 in the 2007 time trail course début. If you’re looking for a ticket you’ll find that info in second, all I’m after is a course profile, at this point I was over it. Time and time again coming across a Chinees based website with the same crap picture (computer generated) of a landscape that looks like it’s off a computer game.

40 minutes later I gave up… convinced that the iron curtain has with heal a seemingly tiny bit of information. I can tell you that the race will be held on the “Urban Cycling Road Course” and not much else. In my final desperation I turned to YouTube and found this. I’ll let you be the judge, I still don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

Michael Rogers

After seeing Rogers unfortunate crash in  the 2007 Tour de France while in being in the virtual yellow jersey on the road. Rogers has disappeared off my Pro tour radar.

After watching this year Spring Racing Classics I noticed that Rogers was not present in any of the starting lists. This got me thinking “where the bloody hell are you Rogers?”  On a quick internet search I found the following info. Mr Rogers has again contracted Epstein-Barr virus and will out of training for 4 – 8 weeks depending on the web report you read. As this news is a shade over a month old at the time of this posting I must admit that I missed this bit of info all together.

The projected recovery time will have him in compete rest for the first 4 weeks and not to return to the bike for not be returning to training until early May 2008. This has undoubtedly pulled Rogers off as team leader of Team High Roads Giro d’Italia team and might end his ride in the Tour de France.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2008, Belgium

The ringing of the bells calls a close to the 2008 seasons Spring Classics with the finsh of the 94th edition of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Alejandro Valverde from team Caisse d’Epargne found the finish line ahead of Davide Rebellinand and Fränk Schleck in a close finish, the win has given Alejandro his second Liège-Bastogne-Liège with the first title been taken in 2006.

With all the main contendors missing the winning move has seen the likes of Thomas Dekker, Cadel Evans, Paolo Bettini and Kim Kirchen miss out on a podium place, but that racing in the UCI world.  Full Face Report in here.

With the close of the classics it’s time to prepare the couch for the up and coming Grand Tours. The 91st Giro d’Italia is due to kick off on 10 May - 1 June 2008.

La Flèche Wallonne 2008.

The 23 April we saw the 72nd La Flèche Wallonne, It means something in Belgain?!?! But I’m bugger if I know what it is. This years race covered 199.5 km’s was taken out by Team High Roads 29 year old rider “Kim Kirchen” in the final 100 meters. On the Australian front, my man Cadel came in a close (by 1 second) 2nd overall.

Kim Kirchen taking out the La Flèche Wallonne 2008

The Next race to look out for is held on 27 April, she goes by the name of “Liège-Bastogne-Liège” once again it’s in Belgium.

For the full race report take a trip over to cyclingnews.com

I found an interview with Cadel. It give you a small look into how his 2008 season is going, being Cadel he doesn’t give much away in the intervew.

Lanterne Rouge

Well I haven’t put much thought into how I should break the news, it’s come down to this, If you’ve heard the song by “I fought the Law but the Law Won”? Well my race went something like this. “I fought the Tree but the Tree won”, in a nut shell I clipped a tree with my right shoulder. Now for the race run down. Let me explain how it all came to be, remember that I had no intention of attempting anything other then taking home the coveted “Lanterne Rouge”. A sort after prize that a sat on many chairs and drank only a few beers to archive while the true MTB boys took on each other..

The “Riders Debrief” was at 11:30am, so we all strolled down to listen to the “Debrief”. Straight after it was done they were ready to sound the starting horn. None of us where ready so we rolled onto the course a few minutes behind the actual start.

Lap 1:
It was nothing but traffic and not knowing the course I found myself waiting for a spot to over take, I put this down to a recon lap.

Lap 2:
Time to get some open space (after heading back to the car to get rid of the Camel Pack) and time to get the right lines down on the course. Feeling good and warmed up.

Lap 3:
The first of the team riders star to breeze past you, at this point I’m thought to myself… was that “Jeff Toohey”?!? I Google Jeff a few days before the big day, turns out Jeff has done this a bit… and has some huge results under his belt (World 24hr Solo MTB Age Group Champion). It was at this point that while reading the Google search results I had found my true calling for this event. I was to be a “moving chicane”!

It turns out I hadn’t seen the Might Toohey on course yet, then again I couldn’t see the number boards just these insanely fast… young dudes tearing up the track. All these thoughts of Jeff Toohey got my thinking about beer. Here in Oz we have a beer called “Toohey’s New” (not a brand I drink myself but it’s beer none the less) the remainder of lap 3 was all about beer and the cold beers I had sitting back at the car. As a true athlete (which I am not) a beer started to sound pretty good.

Lap 4:
I’m finding my groove, I gotta admit that at this point I wasn’t enjoying the ride as much as the first three laps. I had made the choice to pull in after each lap and have a good drink (non alcoholic). Princey had ripped the cleat off his MTB shoe and was waiting for the expo shop to bring in a new pair of shoes.

I was cruising around on lap 4 when I hear this someone call out my name. Looking back and here comes Daggs up the trail. Daggs asked where Princey was so I told him the cleat story. We started to descend through a sort forested single track. I clipped a tree with my right shoulder. The hit was a fast thud with a slight click, the sort of click that makes you think… did something just break? I held my line until the track open up where I could get out of the way of any traffic and check my range of movement on the shoulder. It wasn’t 100% by a long shot but the bloody thing still had full range of movement.

Along with the tree went my confidence on all the descents back into the start/finish. The shoulder and neck hurt and it was now officially beer o’clock. I got into the secret stash of pain killers and I was off to the showers… my day was done at the 3 hour mark. Sad but true!

On another note. Jeff had a small issue and was whipped off to hospital at 3:45am. He returned at around 9:30am and was still in second overall, he didn’t re-join the race and ended up a close 4th. Not bad for a dude that did 288km’s in 15hours and 45 mins offroad. Bloody machine!

Bike Check Completed.

Things for the Bike

• Cateye to be removed and replaced with Polar 72
• Battery required for huge dual halogen MTB head light (I’ll spot the kangaroo’s a mile off with these babies.)
• Tail Light.
• Tubes.
• CO2 adaptor for MTB Style tube valve.

Things to take with:

• Zipp ties for things that loosen in the night.
• Spare AAA batteries (spare for tail light)
• 24 litres of water
• Chair
• Food (No alcohol allowed… bummer)
• Wet weather gear (Not sure why if it rains I’ll be in the van)
• Warm clothes
• Chainsaw (for logs out on the course)

• A four man team so I can assume a management role
• Spare set of legs
• King size bed to sleep the night away
• A 24 pack of Jim Beam UDL’s
• A chef on staff
• Two swedish lesbian massage therapists (I’m sure they’ll be there when the dehydration kicks in)
   

The rules and competitors list and rules (made to be broken) arrived via email last night. There are a grand total of 107 entrants. 23 of which are classified as “Solo Men”, these are the lads I’ll be up against. Fear not you other 22… I’m aiming for the 23 position at the finishing flag and I’m prepared to fight for it.

Tom Boonen take Paris-Roubaix

Tom Boonen has taken out the 106th Paris-Roubaix and added a second cobbel stone trophy to his collection. The 27 year old Belgian out sprinted this year’s favourite to take the win on the velodrome in Roubaix. Have a look at cyclenews.com for a full race run down.

The Lead Break in the 106th Paris-Roubaix.
Front front to Back: Alessandro Ballan, Tom Boonen & Fabian Cancellara

Vuelta al País Vasco

Now if you English the above title would mean “Tour of the Basque Country” well not in direct translation (covering my arse now as I haven’t a clue what it means in Spanish)