Tour Alsace stage 5
30. July 2012
The last stage of the Tour Alsace was also the hardest one! 160 Kilometer with around 3000 meters of altitude and the finish on top of the Ballon d’Alsace.
I had a really bad night and was therefor not feeling to well on the start. We had to do the Col de Ribeauvillé right after the start and after a fast downhill the Col de Bagnelles and the Col de Wettstein. After 30K’s we already had 1000m of Altitude. I think almost in the same speed the altitude meters rose, my amount of lactate acid in my legs rose... Unfortunately the downhill parts didn’t have decreasing influences to my „leg lactate acid level“...
Every climb I felt worse and worse and during the third one after around 75 kilometer, it was too much. I slowly decreased my leg spin and knew it was a matter of time untill there weren’t riders surrounding me, no there were cars and than nobody...
I feel bad for not finishing the Tour Alsace which was so nice in terms of organisation, weather, parcour and riders!!! I knew I’d have hard times here but I thought finishing is possible. I have to admitt though that I think I could have made it to the finishline but the question is, in which condition and what the benefits of finishing could have been.
Since I have sore muscles now – which by the way is very strange since these leg muscles are used to do what they did yesterday – I think it might have been the better decision to opt out.
Typical for me I looked at the stages of the next stage race I’ll do – I know kind of ignoring the past - this morning and am now full of motivation for the Tour de L’Ain!!!
By the way, first race with my french namesake Christoph ;)