Third de France, Stage 8

Pros: Mâcon to Saint-Étienne, 200km, Hilly

Me: Thomas de Gendt Intervals

Barnstorming ride by Thomas de Gendt last night, kicking off a breakaway with De Marchi, Terpstra and King and then gradually dropping them all before holding off a chasing peloton for the win. De Gendt doing what he does best.

Another day with lots of climbs, 7 in total, which meant lots of intervals again. I normally based my efforts off Mike Woods, but he hadn’t uploaded to Strava so I chose to base off De Gendt’s file instead. I opted for the same effort, but half the duration of each of the seven climbs.

9:30 @ 92%

6:20 @ 95%

8:10 @ 100%

6:15 @ 86%

6:20 @ 100%

5:50 @ 95%

2:20 @ 115%

Definitely not fit enough to attempt the full duration of his efforts yet! Ride went well, legs weren’t too bad though my right knee was getting tight towards the end of the ride. Need to do some more stretching.

That’s the worst two stages out of the way, six and eight. There are hard stages later in the Tour, but not 7 intervals in the one stage. Two more days to go to a rest day. Looking forward to it now!

Me: 53.2km, 1h 33mm, 1061 calories, 127 TSS.

Pro: 204.5km, 5h 16m, 5879 calories, 386 TSS.

Weight: 92.2kg - CTL: 41.7 - TSB: -15.8