Welcome to my blog!

I presume that by landing on this page, you may know what the étape du tour is. 

If not, let me try to describe it to you in as few words as possible: it is a wonderful cycling event whereby more than 8,000 amateur cyclists of varying abilities take on a real stage of the tour de france a few days before the professional cyclists ride through.  There are all the important trimmings of the real tour - directions, spectators, technical support, the dreaded broom wagon (a van that picks up riders who go too slowly) and refreshment stops. Out of 8,000+ people who start the event, usually roughly 6,000 odd finish the event - the rest fall by the wayside, either too exhausted, technical problems with their bike or swept up by the broom wagon (or feisty French course marshalls!). This year it will take place between Montélimar and Mont Ventoux: 170-ish kms with about three thousand metres of climbing thrown in for good measure.

I've finally, after months of procrastination, got this blog up and running - I found other blogs really useful to me last year when I was training for the étape - to compare where I was in relative terms of readiness but also to share the experiences of when amateur athletes attempt a seriously demanding training schedule.

I'm not an experienced cyclist, nor a nutritionist, nor a physio but over the last several years I have learned about how to prepare myself for running and cycling events and I hope that you will be able to take at least one nugget of knowledge away from my ramblings between now and the big day: 20 July 2009.