Tour de France hits the UK, thoughts on training

Over the weekend I went to watch some of the tour de France grande depart in Yorkshire with some of my friends and my girlfriend. I've followed the tour de France and some of the spring classic road races for a long time on T.V. While the road races are good to watch the tour and its riders are truly amazing, day in day out racing at average speeds of near to 30 mph and riding up to and over 100 miles every day the training involved must be on such a huge scale especially for the riders competing at the top end of the field.

As it was my first time watching the tour in the flesh I didn't know what to expect, one thing myself and Yorkshire didn't expect was the pure volume of people who came along to support the riders,with a estimated 5 million people watching over the weekend lining every single meter of the roadside its fairly obvious to see cycling is certainly on the rise in the U.K. the atmosphere was fantastic and for all the build up to just see a glimpse of the riders it was all worth the effort of traveling to see the 1st stage. If you didn't go to watch it, you missed out, and when the tour comes again in 10 or so years i'll certainly be making the pilgrimage to go again.

Whilst out in the Yorkshire Dales I had plenty of time to ponder about my racing season and the ETU's in Geneva 2015. The Brownlee Brothers being the top two UK males in the world triathlon series Its nice to see how they managed to train up to the standards they have achieved growing up in the Yorkshire Dales, with all the roads,climbs and trails its a athletes paradise. If you are into triathlon or you have a partner who is I would recommend there biography Swim Bike Run, there are so many similarity's to how they think as athletes its a good insider to a triathletes brain and also good to hear when your going through a rough patch that your not on your own in your thoughts.

Living in Lincolnshire its a wonder how you can ever replicate the hills of the Dales however the hills of the dales are a long way off the mountains of France but watching some of the worlds top riders suffering in the Dales made me realize that hills are hills no matter how steep or long they are, what we seem to have in Lincolnshire are short but steep hills, these are brilliant and if done in repetition and something I need to add into my training more often

My training of late has become a little unstructured after the dambuster, I had spent so long Training for the event I lost sight of any goals after the event. I still Have the British Triathlon Club relays to take part in, August and I am also considering entering the Doncaster standard distance Triathlon In September. After the race at Rutland water and a holiday at center parc, I lost site of my diet and put a little weight on so my first goal is to slim back down to a racing weight, my next goal is to stay race fit for these two events but what comes after that? how do i stay Focused? I had recently ordered Joe Friel triathlon training bible and hope that I can learn from his book and experience, I certainly need more structure, the time off heavy training has been a welcome break but now is the time to start thinking ahead of the future