A good days training

Trained hard today, but more of that later. Yesterday, Monday, I took as a recovery day, 2 hour ride through the countryside, enjoying the scenery just rolling the legs around. I had a plan, four place names in my mind to do a big loop through 'unknown' territory, I nailed the first two, St lievens Houtem and Zottergem after that I have absolutely know idea where I was and to be honest I probably couldn't have backtracked either. However it was brilliant day weather wise, 28c I think with a light breeze which made it a very pleasant day to be on the bike so I just enjoyed being out there confident that sooner or later I would come across a sign that I recognized. More by chance that skill at almost exactly 2 hours I found myself at a junction of the N50, only 2kms up the road rom the hotel, I'd like to call it skill but it was a surprise to me! I spent the afternoon with the tour, great finish but a terrible crash. Interesting to see the Facebook 'experts', calling for heavier bikes, no deep wheels, no radio's, more skills training (what!)etc etc as a fix for crashes. If most of these people were bike racers, they've forgotten the reality of it out there 200 guys racing, a moments inattention, a sudden swerve and somebody goes over the wheel, result crash we've all been there, it happens and its no secret that road rash and collar bones are the commonest result. I hope that all the fallers recover quickly, especially Spartacus. Today I trained, having thought about what I actually lacked on Sunday I came to the conclusion that at the 'component' level, nothing, initially I was punching up speed and power, closing gaps, climbing as well if not better than most of the opposition. What I decided was lacking was the ability to keep doing it for the whole race, that's fixable, not necessarily a quick fix but what else am I going to do with my time! So today I rode 25km to my quiet little training circuit, all at tempo, some of it at threshold. My plan was four laps with more 'work', starting with a one minute interval, followed by a two minute interval, a 20 second sprint, 20 second rest, 20 second sprint, there were also two dead turns that also got 15 second sprints out of them. It goes without saying that I was trying to keep the gear rolling and the speed up between each effort, no freewheeling. It was hard, very hard but that of course was the point, I think my lungs were giving out before my legs, although of course my legs caught up pretty quick. All the sprints I was punching 1000 watts, even at the end, I did think about another lap but I was actually feeling a bit sick by then, I managed to get my HR to 176 in one of the sprint sequences, I thought my max was 175 these days, that was probably what was making me feel ill! So I compromised by doing 10km above threshold on the way home. For those that understand training with power, my TSS for the day was 225, with my hour of intervals it was 135! pretty happy with that for a day's training, I plan on repeating that on Thursday, with hopefully a better performance at the weekend. Now I am settled down for the cobbles stage of Le Tour, which with a 100km to go has so far been pretty boring.