So, after last year’s two day Rando des Marmottes, I concluded that even though I wasn’t sure I could do the whole thing in one day, after the experience of the tough first day, just having another go at the two day event really wasn’t going to teach me much. So, back in November, I applied for a place for the full event. At least it might teach me something.
For those that don’t know, the Marmotte was one of the first of the tough European ‘sportives’ and was, for a long time, the hardest. It’s probably not the hardest still, but it is tough! The route consists of the Col du Glandon (26 kms), the Col du Télégraphe (11kms), the Col du Galibier (15Ks) and finishes on Alpe d’Huez. All in all, there’s over 5000 M of climbing in the day, although the length is only 109 miles, so it’s not very long. Most of the time, you are either going up or down!
I knew it would be difficult for me to do, but a calculation at analyticcycling.com showed that if I could produce around 175W for the duration of the event, I’d be OK. To really go well, I’d need to fat burn at that intensity, which is something of a problem for me and would need me to keep my heart rate quite low (ideally at less than 130). That was likely to be a challenge, probably an insurmountable one.
If you want to skip the article and just see whether I made it or not, jump to the end!
As I did last year, I went to Simon Kidd for a metabolic test and a plan. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stick strictly to the plan largely because of work-related travel. I also struggled with weight this year. I kept it down to within a couple of pounds of last year, but originally intended to get my weight down by at least 2-3Kgs. This didn’t happen and I was probably a kilo up on the start of the race last year.
A test that Simon gave me last year, established my Functional Transfer Power (FTP) at around 197W. I started to really get into understanding the power produced when cycling and to further that knowledge, for my birthday, Yvette gave me a PowerTap – a rear wheel hub that measures your actual power production.
I had previously trained using a heartrate monitor, but temperature and tiredness and other factors can cause your heart rate to drift. Power is the real truth about how you are doing. One of my main sports science gurus is Joe Friel and he won’t train anyone for cycling if they won’t use one.
(At the moment, I’m still really trying to understand the huge amount of data that gets produced. It’s overwhelming and you can see why the top teams use full time performance analysts to look at this stuff! I use the excellent Golden Cheetah public domain software)
My training plan did have some effect and the combination of that and the trip to the Pyrenees and several 100 mile rides meant that I did increase my power to perhaps somewhere around the 205-210 Watts (more analysis to be done). That is measured over an hour, so didn’t really seem enough to sustain a really long ride at 175W.
Travel etc
Anyway, having done lots of calculations about the best way to get down for the Marmotte, it turned out that Yvette was finishing college a week before, so we decided to make the ride the middle weekend of our holiday. We booked a gîte in Ornon – around 5 miles up the climb of the Col D’Ornon (a very enjoyable ride). That meant that I could almost freewheel to the start at le Bourg d’Oisans.
We had the lower gite.
The trip down was tiring, but we spread it over two days, stopping overnight in Reims on the way down. Most of the week was spent training on the bike (I did one biggish ride on the Sunday up Alpe d’Huez, although, annoyingly, my Garmin lost the track!) and mostly slobbing around once I had spent all of Monday and half of Tuesday catching up with work that I should have got done before I left.
We had a day out in Briançon at looking around the fort and shopping. Otherwise, it was riding, some short walks and eating/relaxing.
We visited this fort in Briançon
Our neighbours at the gîte were also cyclists, but were doing the ‘Mi-Marmotte’, the half length ride. Patrick, the son of the family, is a very strong rider – he did Alpe d’Huez in around 45 minutes – slightly over half the time it takes me!
The Big Day
It was a joy to be preparing ‘at home’ rather than in a hotel room, even though the home was a temporary one. On the evening before, I got everything ready on the bike and even prepared all I needed for breakfast.
Yvette set her alarm for 5:45 (a good job she set hers – I also set the alarm on my phone, but it was still on UK time, so I would have missed the start!). I breakfasted (porridge, toast, fruit juice) and put on lots of lycra as it is cold at this height in the mornings. The descent to the start was without incident and I was into the line at around 6:50, fairly near the front of the block that I was due to ride in. Then there was just over an hour’s wait – I drank a bottle of sports drink and a protein bar and we were off.
My number was 6250, so I was in the last group to leave.
The Glandon
We set off down the road towards the Glandon and the road was full of cyclists, some going as easy as me, others in quite fast groups. At Rochetaillée, the road turns to the right and soon starts to head upwards. I settled into my planned 175W groove.
Part of the challenge for me was to keep my legs relatively fresh and I had put a big chainwheel on the back of the bike with a mountain bike derailleur. As a result, I am quite slow, but the strain on the legs is significantly reduced, which is a good plan for such a long ride. As we went up the Glandon, if felt as though everybody went past me. I’m not sure that I passed anyone on the first half. I found that keeping a sharp eye on the power forced me to keep slowing down, my legs wanted to go at 225W to 250W – I felt really good. However, it was going to be a long day!
About half way up the Glandon, there is a small valley with a descent and last year I noted that this was a relief. However, this year, I was surprised that we had got to it, I really didn’t feel at all stressed. The plan was working!
The second half of the Glandon climb went well and I started to pass some of those that had passed me on the first half, especially those that had been puffing and blowing. I got to the first feed station at the top of the climb in good time and pretty well on schedule – about 2hrs 37 in and with 1200 metres climbed (4,000′). I was disappointed with the quality of the food at the top. There was a range of dates, dried apricots, dry bread, cheese, some bananas and oranges as well as some small cakes. As so often on these rides, a lot of sweet food, which is understandable, but not very attractive when you have been drinking sweet sports drinks all the way up a climb.
I hadn’t got negative memories of the food last time, but as I was relying on it less, maybe I just didn’t care as much.
The descent of the Glandon went reasonably well and I started to get my ‘descending mojo’ back. I had a crash back in February on a hill near home that hit my descending confidence and it has been hard to rebuild it. However, just as I got to the bottom, there was a cluster of cars and an ambulance and someone being put on a stretcher, so that was a reminder that some caution was a good idea!
The Télégraphe
The ride up the valley from the bottom of the Glandon to the bottom of the Télégraphe is the least enjoyable part of the ride and last year I took it too hard. This time I kept my heart rate under control and ‘sucked wheels’ as I got to the bottom of the climb. There were several riders that I rode with that I later saw on the Galibier.
My big concern after last year was heat. The Télégraphe really took it out of me last time and I had identified this as a problem with temperature – it had got to 32° C in 2011 (around 90° F). I had decided before coming to France that if the forecast was as hot as last year, I would do the two day event, rather than the single day one. However, the local weather forecast had been suggesting a maximum of around 26° C mid-day at Valloire, the top of the next climb.
They lied.
It had been around 25° C at the bottom of the Glandon, but it was 33° C at the bottom of the Télégraphe. As we moved into the lower slopes in the sun, it hit 37° C (blood temperature!) and hovered between 27 and 32 until half way up the Galibier when the temperature finally started to go down.
It got pretty hot at the bottom of the second climb
The climb of the Télégraphe went well, especially considering how hard I found it in 2011. I decided that, given the conditions, and the fact that I was now well ahead of schedule, I would reduce my power output up the Télégraphe and settled on around 150W. This is where the PowerTap came into its own. I was able to constantly monitor my output and keep things under control. The large gear on the back was also a big help.
11-34 give the chance of spinning on the climbs, especially with a 50/34 on the front
I was able to go relatively gently up the Télégraphe and, in contrast to last year’s multiple stops, I got to the top without any rests at all and still on schedule. After a quick drink, and a wash of my glasses (which were smeared with sweat and sun-block!) it was down the 5Ks to Valloire and the start of the Galibier.
The Galibier
Around 1K out of Valloire there was another food stop. I found some kind of sausage and some bread, but it was very dry. A guy behind the counter at the food stop was trying to persuade people to grab the big pieces of cheese (camembert) on the grounds that they had ‘lots of energy’. I’m not sure how he thought most riders would be able to digest this as they made the climb!
Camembert may have a lot of calories, but digestable on a climb?
I set off up the Galibier, which was shorter than I had remembered – just 15K when in my mind I thought it was going to be 21K. That was good news.
I enjoyed the Galibier, (especially the first couple of Ks which are just 3%!) but after a few Ks I started to feel pretty poor. My guts were playing up and I was finding it harder to keep going. My feet were very hot and uncomfortable and I was getting the sleepiness that I had experienced last year on the Telegraphe. After a few Ks, I stopped and took off my shoes to let my feet cool and relax. Bliss!
I took some BCAA capsules as I had read that the sleepiness may be caused by a ‘Tryptophan imbalance’ that might be because of a lack of these chemicals. Just for good luck, I took a caffiene pill as well (caffiene is an established aid to endurance cycling).
That got me going again and after a couple more stops, I got to around 5Ks from the top and stopped again. This time, when I set off, I felt much better and seemed to get a ‘second wind’. I stopped once more about 3Ks from the top for a couple of minutes and then got almost to the top. About 500m from the top, I lost the ability to go on and I walked a few hundred metres before remounting to go ‘over the top’.
The Galibier is a ‘proper’ climb – with magnificent views and snow
At the top, there was more food, but it was very dry and unpalatable. I chewed on a dry ham and cheese roll, but could barely swallow it. And it was cold at the top.
I put on the leg warmers, arm warmers and gilet, but it was still not warm. By now the temperature had got down to 16° C (60° F). I sent Yvette a text to warn her that I was about to start the descent. Sadly, because of the stops, I was now well behind schedule. My riding time was OK, but I had spent quite a while on the side of the road. Still, I was hoping for some recovery on the descent.
The Descent of the Galibier & Lauteret
With the wind chill, it was really cold coming down the Galibier. I was shivering and my fingers were cold, but nowhere near the problems of the Tourmalet in 2008. The surface was fantastic, but with no crash barriers and a deep ditch on the mountain side of the road, I can’t say that I enjoyed it very much as the concentration needed was extreme.
At the end of the Galibier descent, there’s a junction at the top of the Col du Lauteret, left to Briançon and right to Le Bourg d’Oisans. I swung right and realised that I was getting closer than I would have liked to the closing time at the bottom of Alpe D’Huez, at 7:00pm. I didn’t want to miss that.
By now, the temperature had risen to comfortable again and the Lautaret is an awesome descent. I got my descending mojo back and powered down through the tunnels. As I got towards the lower end, I realised that I had very little time to get back to the Bourg. Although it broadly descends at the end, there are some flatter bits and I was up to 200W as I tried to get back to the timing control. I was now overdressed (temperature control is a real challenge on this ride!), but didn’t want to lose time by stopping to remove layers.
The Lauteret is a great descent (not my picture!)
The main worry coming down the descent is the number of tunnels that are very dark and really you just have to hope that there are no potholes or debris on the road!
The tunnels on the descent are a concern
Le Bourg & Alpe D’Huez.
I arrived back at the feeding station at the bottom of the Alp at 6:58, with a cut off of 7:00, after 11 hours in the saddle! I saw Yvette who had driven down with some more rations and with a plan to eventually drive me back home. I had a quick word and then powered down the road to go over the timing mat. However, it was already gone 😦
When I got back to the feed zone to talk to Yvette and get some food, they were taking in timing chips, so as I knew by now that I wouldn’t get an official finishing time, I handed mine in.
After the chat and a bit of salad – I couldn’t face anything else – I started up the Alpe. I planned to stop at each of the two churches on the way up. I was determined to finish and I started well. My legs were OK and I felt generally alright.
However, by the time I’d been around a couple of the 21 hairpins, I was suffering again. Any recovery that I had managed on the descent down the Lauteret had mostly been blown away by the effort to get to the bottom of the Alpe by the cut off time. I stopped again. After a couple of minutes, I got going again and did another couple of hairpins.
By the third stop, which was longer, I knew that it was going to take me all evening to get up the hill, even if I could. Coming down is bad enough in the light, but in the dark without lights, I really didn’t fancy it, so, reluctantly, I turned the bike around and went back down to the bottom and abandoned.
😦
Ignore the last bit – it was Yvette driving me up the hill!
At the bottom, I met up with Yvette again and she drove me home.
Conclusion
I would have to say that the event was about what I should have expected. It went much better than I feared, but not as well as I had hoped.
On the positive side, I got over around 3.2/4 of the climbs – about 55 kms of mountain climbing and about 4,100 m (13,500′) of ascent and I kept going for around 10 hours of riding time. I also did significantly better than last year and the power meter has helped me define exactly what I need to be able to do. Looking at the analysis in the power meter software, I put out more power for longer than I have done on any other ride this year, so I know I did my best.
On the negative side, I didn’t make it to the end and part of me really, really wants to crack this one. Yvette has put up with a huge amount from me to support me on this, so next year, I’m not going to do it. The question is whether I can come back in 2014 to finish the job….
Calculations
I’m convinced that at 175W, for all the climbs on the ride, I could do it. Given that on the mountains, power to weight is the key, that means around 2.25 Watts/Kilo as I started the race at about 78Kg. I believe that if I really, really tried, I could get down to around 73Kg as I did once get to that weight around 25 years ago. That would mean a power budget of 165W.
The Marmotte was my highest power output over multiple hours since I got the PowerTap in March this year.
This year, I maintained that power output for just under 3 hours. I probably could have done it for longer, but was deliberately holding my power to below that. On the other hand, at around 7 hours of riding (and that’s the length of the climbs at my kind of rested speed) my power has dropped from about 207W to 125W – a drop of 40% which is ‘par for the course’ – endurance pace is about 60% of FTP. So, to achieve the Marmotte in the future, I would have to either get my FTP up to 275W or improve my endurance.
An FTP of 275W is unrealistic, even on a two year plan. At best, I might get to 225W, I think. That would mean improving my endurance performance to mean a drop of around 30% at 7 hours. I’m not sure how realistic that is, so I need to do some more research. I’m sure it’s possible, but given that I have to work for a living…
And Finally…
Anyway, as John Ebdon always used to say, “If you have been, thanks for listening”. If you have got a comment, please paste it below!
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