Various things got in the way today and I didn’t get time to get out to ride my version of Stage 9, plus I couldn’t be bothered riding indoors again, so instead I opted to bring forward the rest day. It’s not really due until after Stage 10, but so be it.

The weekend has been pretty good for recovery. I’ve done as little as possible, apart from the required rides. J’s away in Sydney so I’ve taken a leaf out of the cat’s book and spent the majority of my time lounging around the back deck reading. Seems to have worked. Legs are still sore, but HRV has not recovered to normal levels, perhaps showing that I’m coping OK with the increased training load.

Speaking of which, here’s my training load graph since I started the Third de France.

Blue is the long-term fitness line, which is slowly increasing. Yellow is the fatigue line which is taking a more rapid dive. The lowest dashed pink line is my “you’ll probably pick up a bug” line - if my fatigue line stays below that for more than a couple of days, there’s a very good chance that I’ll get run down and pick up a cold or something. Basically it’s my ‘take a rest’ warning line.

Anyway, so far so good. I’ll continue with Stage 9 tomorrow and then skip the rest day after Stage 10 to get back on track.

Totals for the 8 stages so far: 14h 43m, 420.8km, 801 TSS