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Training with Horizon Fitness in Italy, or, Albertina’s ambitious attempt to hold onto the coat tails of the pros

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Many of you will have picked up on the fact that I was in Italy last week. Did you miss me on the live threads, yelling at Tommeke and my Beloved Beñat through the medium of the keyboard? I feel sure that you did. Please tell me that you did, otherwise I will get sadface. Anyway, the reason for my absence was the Horizon Fitness RT training camp in Riccione, a week long boot camp (for me at least) held at the Mpire Cycling Centre, the brain child of former pro Jamie Burrow (immortalised in Gav’s interview here), and the Hotel Villa Platani. Here is a modest little diary of the week.

Saturday 2nd April: Dragging a suitcase and a bike across Europe is fun

My journey to Riccione was memorable largely for the number of people who peered at my bike box confusedly, before discussing with their neighbours what on earth might be in it. You could, like, just ask me people, cos no, it’s not a clavichord. Anyway, it was with much excitement and not a little nervousness that I boarded my flight to Bologna (along with a rowdy-as-hell herd of school children…cue the Stern Librarian Glare). You see, I like to ride my bike, but I’m a bit slow, and I climb like an arthritic tortoise. I’m lucky if I manage seven hours a week in the saddle, owing to all the working/singing/flute playing/pelota writing (ok, shameless plug) etc etc with which I fill my life, and I knew this was going to be my biggest week ever, quite apart from the fact that my riding companions would include the likes of Helen Wyman and Sarah freakin’ Storey (help). Plus, I’d received the routes, complete with profiles, by email, and the sight of them almost made my eyes pop out of my head. But I like a challenge. I like to do things which scare me. I wanted to see how far I could push myself, both physically and perhaps mentally, and I was determined to tackle anything which stood in my way.

 

It was warm when we landed in Bologna. Lovely. I met Nancy Arreola in arrivals, and we began the Herculean task of negotiating Italian public transport with two bikes. To sum it up, we had to wait for about a thousand hours for a train in Bologna Central Station, where there are no cafés, before humphing all our stuff up the near vertical ladder onto the train with no help from the gawping onlookers, and sitting on the floor between carriages for an hour and a half, while apparently irritating the entire populace of Emilia Romagna with the vast amount of space we occupied. It felt good that night to hand the bike over to Stef Wyman (aka ds_stef), and watch him put it back together while I ate tiramisu.

 

 

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Sunday 3rd April: Testing the legs

Each day started with breakfast from 7.30, with the ride leaving at around 9.30. On this opening day, however, there were two groups, one leaving a little later to allow those who only arrived that morning to have a spin too. I opted for the later group, as honestly, I was a little, well, tense, and wanted to ease myself in and get an idea of the general pace and intensity over something less than four hours. Myself, Stef, Ella Sadler-Andrews, Katie Noakes of Inverse Racing, and another individual hanger-on called Keith, headed out along the flat, fast coast road out of Riccione and up onto a ridge called the Panoramica, which affords gorgeous views of the Adriatic and the surrounding region. This was my first taste of Italian climbing, and while not crazy hard, these hills were one heck of a lot longer than my local Essex cols. To my relief, as I wound my way up onto the ridge, I found my rhythm, and sensed that I might just survive the week. On the way back, after a couple of hours, we whizzed over the finishing line of one of the Coppi e Bartali stages (I think the one where Corioni pipped my New Favourite Sprinter Andrea Guardini…bah): I was in Italy, on a bike, wheeee! Lunch wolfed down, it was Ronde time. And yes, everyone on the camp became well aware of the depth of my Boonen fangirlness. Not the result I’d hoped for, prayed for, and sold my soul to The Black Unicorn for, but I was content. This was a cycling bubble and I liked it.

 

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Monday 4th April: Remember to eat!

On the agenda for today was a 100km loop, taking in three climbs (although there was something which felt suspiciously like a climb before climb one even reared its head). The team had various tasks to perform on each of the climbs, such as intervals, threshold efforts and sprints, but for me it was enough to get up them with something in the proverbial tank. 100km is usually about the limit of my rides at home, and it’s not too often I get time to do even that. I’d certainly never ridden this far at this kind of lick. There was no time to ease into a ride gently here, as the pack didn’t hang around even on the way out of town.

 

On the flat I felt pretty good and had no problems keeping pace. My major concern was my relative ineptitude in a group; I mostly ride on my own at home and even when with people our little peloton is rarely more than three or four, so this was a major learning curve. I found I lost metres on every tight corner for example, and was constantly having to chase back onto the wheel in front, and I was twitchy at times about getting too close to the wheel in such a tightly packed, fast moving bunch. But I listened, learned, and tried to improve. Again, the climbing was unexpectedly pleasant, although on the second ascent I certainly felt the first one in my legs. Half way up the third climb though, I wasn’t feeling so chipper. I’d been vaguely aware that I probably wasn’t eating enough, perhaps because I was concentrating so hard on other things. It wasn’t steep, and my legs had hitherto felt decent, but a wave of nausea hit me and compounded itself, hairpin upon hairpin. I got tailed off and thought I was going to puke. By the time Stef dropped back to check on me, I thought the world was going to end. I tried to eat a cake, but I couldn’t swallow. Even drinking was an unpleasant challenge. A little bit of a helpful push to the next village, a coke and a gel, and I was fine, but I shall be more studious in future. Curious really, as eating isn’t exactly a chore for me in everyday life!

 

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Tuesday 5th April: Rain rain go away!

Tuesday was supposed to be our endurance day, but as we sat round munching our nutella croissants, glazing glumly at the clouds dropping their fatness (I’m a singer, forgive the quoting from the Psalter thing), that prospect appeared far from sensible. We swapped Tuesday for Wednesday therefore, and took our ‘active rest day’. The first activity was the getting in of some quality chammy time while waiting for the rain to stop. Lycra posing, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of that? When the sun condescended to show itself, some of us went out for a couple of hours, taking in a local bike shop which was so pleasingly dripping with Euro style bling, mostly in white and smothered with Italian flags, that you expected a beaming Pozzato to emerge from behind every stand. I bought some gloves, but I rather wanted some shoes, and some wheels, and some sunglasses, and a helmet….anyone seen the Money Fairy?

 

While on the subject of rest, one of the biggest lessons of the week was the importance of recovery. This was stressed and re-stressed. If you can sit, sit, and if you can lie, lie. The Tour of Basque Country was on RAI every afternoon, and I had the perfect excuse to lie on my bed in front of it and do precisely nothing.

 

 

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Wednesday 6th April: The longest day

Fully rested, it was time to get serious. I don’t think I’d ever been as far as 120km before, certainly not over anything approaching this sort of terrain. Some people extended the loop to 140km, taking in a couple of extra climbs, but for the rest of us it was hardly a picnic, with two ascents, the second of which took us to the highest traversable point in the region, Villagrande, which tops out at about 1000m. There certainly isn’t anything like Villagrande in Essex. It’s a climb of about 15km, much of which is fairly gradual, but there are portions of 10% and possibly a little more, which is plenty hard enough to hurt the legs after the earlier hills. But, shock horror, I rather enjoyed it. I took my time, true, but the views were utterly majesterial, and I had a moment of pure bliss upon the realisation that I was surrounded by singing birds and beauty in all directions, while my colleagues were back in noisy, dirty central London, fielding enquiries about central serous chorioretinopathy. The descent was adrenaline fuelled joy, not too technical and blissfully fast. On the way back towards the coast, a couple of us latched onto the back wheel of Jamie. I did have to pull Jensgrintaface to hang on (having had plenty time to practise sereneBassohalfgrinface on the climb), but beamed inwardly all the more at the pleasure of scooting along in the slipstream of a Postie boy. Talk about a super domestique!

 

Evenings at the Villa Platani followed a set routine. At 6.30 we all met for a meeting, at which, led by Jamie and Stef, we talked about the day’s training and looked ahead to the next day. Although this was largely aimed at the team, who had been carrying out prescribed exercises, I found the insights into the pro life fascinating. Although I am very much a part time cyclist who rides for pleasure and fitness (notwithstanding my average but uber-competitive forays into cyclocross), I will certainly try to apply some of these training techniques to my rides, especially as making the most out of a small amount of time is a particular challenge for me. There were also plenty of interesting tales from Jamie of his past in the Italian under-23 system; is the discipline too extreme or are the results the justification? We could debate this all night, but this probably isn’t the place! The meeting was always followed by dinner at 7.30. I must take a moment to praise the food: dinner started with a buffet laden with all kinds of delights (the pizza was especially delectable), then there was some form of pasta, then a meat course, and then a pudding, washed down with rather lovely local wine if you wanted it. We were excellently looked after at every turn.

 

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Thursday 7th April: Hitting the wall

My legs felt pretty reasonable when I got up on Thursday morning, and I was mentally more than ready for another tough day. So I gave up any ideas of doing an easier ride to aid recovery. Mistake! This was not a normal week for me, and as soon as the road went marginally upwards, my body reminded me of this, so I made the prudent choice to do a shorter loop. It would have been shorter still had I not missed the turn for Riccione and got lost in a network of roundabouts in Rimini, so I still got in a little over two hours, and had time to wander into town for a lemon sorbet before the daily routine of RAI Sport and more delicious food.

 

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Friday 8th April: Going strong

So, the last day. I hoped I’d feel good, and I did. Today we rode out of Riccione in the direction of Villagrande, doing a portion of the climb from the opposite side. I tried to hang on as best I could for as long as I could, and when the going got hot, slipped into my own personal zone. According to my own standards, I felt comfortable and under little stress, and on the way back, ensconced in the group, I felt like I could fly. This was the life; did it have to end? On our return to the seaside almost three hours later, we went in search of a gelato. And boy was it good.

 

A week completed, and it was party time at Villa Platani. We were treated to a special dinner of local delicacies, followed by live music from the Nashville Trio, who are more Italian than they sound. There was wine and there was dancing, tinged with the bittersweet knowledge that in 24 hours I would be back in Upminster, which while a convenient place to live, is not Italy. I also won my first and only award for my climbing prowess; I may never win polka dots, but I am officially the Happiest Climber!

 

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Saturday 9th April: Please don’t make me leave!

 

I had much time to reflect as I retraced my steps back to England, thankfully minus the rowdy school children. I went to Riccione looking for a challenge, and I found one. I rode for many more hours than I ever have before in a similar period, and climbed more hills than I had in months back home, all the time trying to keep my head above water with some of the best in the world. It’s pointless trying to compare myself to them; I can only judge my efforts according to my own lights, and I am content. I pushed myself and I enjoyed every minute (with the possible exception of climb three on day two!). I’ll never be a winner but I love riding my bike, and I love broadening my horizons. I hope my experiences here will make me stronger on the bike, and give me added confidence in every way.

 

Being on a training camp like this is like being in a parallel world where only your legs, your mind and your goals matter. Perhaps I now understand a little more of the life of a full time cyclist, even though this was just a week in time for me. I’ve been wondering since I returned, whether mentally I could do it for a living, providing of course that I had a shed load more talent. There is something strangely comforting about the routine of riding, eating, resting, eating and sleeping, and something compelling about setting yourself challenges and experiencing such euphoria when you overcome them, although I guess I saw very few of the lows. Adapting to reality this past week has been tough, even more so than I had envisaged.

 

My thanks go out to Stef Wyman and to the whole Horizon Fitness team, who made me so very welcome. I was worried beforehand that I wouldn’t cope, but I felt so encouraged by everyone, and my fears were totally unfounded. Thanks also to Jamie and Valentina; if there is a better run training centre/hotel set-up in the world of cycling I would like to see it. The hospitality was marvellous, and every last detail of our programme was thought out and delivered to perfection. If you are thinking of making a cycling trip to Italy, look no further.

 

A few links: Horizon Fitness Racing Team (there are more photos here under Blogs then Photo Blogs) Mpire Cycling Centre/Hotel Villa Platani

Twitter: @jamieburrow. @onthedrops, @Hotel_Platani, @ds_stef

 

Most of the photos are courtesy of Jamie Burrow, with a few of mine thrown in.