Back in 2006 we had Epic France where I was largely acting in a support role, since then I’ve been looking forward to Epic Italy. We were supposed to come last year but my wife and I were expecting our first baby so that got canned. Scott and I have been devising the plan since and in a few days we are underway. The more I’ve researched the route we are taking the harder it looks. Last week I was on a camp in Poland and caught a bit of the Giro coverage and saw how ridiculously hard some of the climbs we’ll be doing are. Thankfully Ian from Pyrennese Multisport is coming on the camp again and I’ll be on one of his bikes with compact cranks – I don’t want another Col de Tourmelet episode (epic france) where I completely cracked and ran out of gears.
Our camp starts in Verona and heads north to Trento where we stay for 2 nights. We then head north east towards the ski resort town of Cortina D’Ampezzo for 3 nights – on route and whilst we are here we’ll be heading over the Marmolade, Giau and several other notorious climbs. From Cortina we head west to Bolzano where we stay for two nights and take in the infamous Stelvio and Gavia Passes in what will be a massive day. The final day will be a gentle spin back down to Verona for some well earned Pizza.
After a huge week in Poland (week of 26th May) I fell a little better prepared for Epic. I’m using the camp as preparation for Challenge Roth so will be taking my usual sensible approach and moderating my efforts. I do plan on some decent intensity every 2nd day so we’ll see what that brings. Overall I’m looking for camp completion (doing the daily minimums) and not coming out the other end of the camp completely smoked. It’s going to be a blast.
I’ll be doing podcasts on ironmantalk.com every 2nd day at least and plan to do a blog entry daily. I’m also in charge of photo’s so will keep them coming as and when I can on epiccamp.com
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