Alexander Lapajne's Cycle Racing Blog: Preparations for Andalucia Bike Race 2017

Friday, 10 February 2017

Preparations for Andalucia Bike Race 2017

I have signed up for Andalucia Bike Race. It's a mountain bike stage race with six days of racing. The event start is on the 26th of February.

Overview

Duration: 6 days / stages
Total distance: 413 km
Total climbing: 9732 hm

The race takes place in the Andalucia region of Spain. Three of the stages start in Cordoba, one in Andujar, and the last two from Linares. There's a lot of climbing which, as you know, I like.

Today is about five weeks until the race starts. I'm trying to work out a good training strategy for the time leading up to the race. I need to drop some weight. This morning I was at just below 75kg. I want to get closer to 70kg.

Updates

(2016 December about 79kg)
2017-Jan-18: 74.8kg
2017-Jan-27: 74.0kg
2017-Feb-02: 73.4kg
2017-Feb-04: 72.8kg
2017-Feb-16: 72.8kg (less training the last weeks before the race means weight has stopped decreasing)

Update 2017-Feb-21:

Achilles tendon is getting better. The reduced training load of the last two weeks before the race is helping. I did two mountain bike sessions this weekend with just a little bit of pain. Hopefully this last week before the race, with even less training, will make the tendon heal completely.

Here's the previous week of training:

The race officials have updated the route of the event. All stages have gotten longer and harder. I've updated the totals and the profile on this blog today.

Update 2017-Feb-15:

I currently (after last weekend's heavy training) have a very painful and swollen achilles tendon. I have not been able to train properly (on the bike) since Sunday. Today (Wednesday) I just did a slow commute and even that hurt.

Update 2017-Feb-12:

4 weeks of heavy training finished. Two weeks to go before the race. Now I go into the taper period:

Update 2017-Feb-06:

The list of participants was released today. It seems that there are 160 riders in the M40 category (my category): http://www.andaluciabikerace.com/carrera/participantes