Epic Italy Day 2

Day 2 – Trento

Swim 3km

Bike 160km (with two passes)

Run 50mins

After yesterdays gentle introduction to the camp today’s profile on the bike was a little taster of what is to come when we hit the mountains. When I set today’s route I thought it was going to be a reasonable climb early on then some rolling terrain and some flat. I didn’t quite get it right. The thing with Trento is it’s in a valley; north and south are flat but anywhere else and you are going straight up. After a few accidental tourist detours through town we were into it. I set a gentle tempo up the climb to start with then Gordo shot off. The second group comprised Steven, Scott, Jo (our only female camper) and myself. After a little while Jo came around me and started to crack the whip. Whilst I wasn’t quite on the rivet we were chugging along faster than planned and nobody seemed willing to take the lead off Jo. I was latter told she was sitting on 175HR and was worried about getting dropped on the flat’s and descents. Jo is a petite wee thing and struggled a little with the power bursts on the flat on day 1, day 2&3 she really showed the boys what she was made of consistently being one of the first over the climbs. About 2/3 of the way up the climb Scott upped the ante and it was game on as the climb steepened, Jo dropped off first then Steven and as we made the crest at the top of the Passo Vezzena (1402m) I was 2^nd(behind Gordo) Steven 3^rd and Scott 4^th (it was a bit of a hoax 2^nd for me as Scott had stopped to put his jacket on as the rain began and it was heavy). Down the other side of the mountain and the rain was just chucking down but it wasn’t too cold thankfully.

Everyone seemed to get lost somewhere today but we all made it to a welcome lunch break in the sun. From there we went up a valley for some time before a tough climb back over the pass, I took this real easy mindful of what lay ahead on day 3. The final 20km of today was downhill and it had dried out which was fantastic. This was the highlight of my day, high speed, great road surface and cool views.

So after two days I’m in one piece and doing what I had planned to do with my training. Everyone seems to be holding up OK with the exception of Michael Peters who has a recurring groin injury (see team blog).

We had a monstrous meal tonight, god knows how any normal person could have a prima and secondi at the restaurant we ate at. When we got back to the hotel I certainly had that “I’ve eaten too much” feeling. Oh well I'll likely burn it off tomorrow