DAY 5 - The Queen Mountain stage

DAY 5

Run – 10km easy

Bike – 167km Le Grave to Sainte Foy Tarentaise incl Col du Galibiere & Col D’Iseran (highest pass in Europe) incl 4000m elevation.

Today is what epic camp is all about. Going very very deep when carrying fatigue. It’s like being in the back half of an Ironman run where you have to make choices to push on (or give up). You can't really simulate than in training but you can on Epic Camp. 

I, like everyone I think/hope, was more than aware that today was going to be insanely hard. Whilst we had a KOM late in the ride I went into “conserve and preserve” mode from the get go. My plan was just to sit at a nice comfortable 180-200w on the flat and keeping it 200-220w on the climbs where possible.

Out the door we had 10km climbing up the Lautaret which is not that steep then carrying on to the Galibiere which was another 7-8km @ 7-10% with a strong kick at the finish. Obviously whilst we climb a huge amount that we all go on about we also have to descend. There are some on this camp that need some serious brushing up on then descending but others like myself, Phil, Adam, Julian Stockwell etc that enjoy nothing more than ripping it down the mountains touching the brakes as little as possible. When we were not held up by traffic today we had some classic high speed descending – awesome. Nobody seems to be taking any life threating risks but Phil did crack the 100km/hr barrier coming down Ventoux the other day. 

After the drop down the Col Du Telegraph we were going to spend most of the rest of the day climbing up to the peak of the camp the Col D’Iseran - the highest pass in Europe. I decided to change my nutrition today taking just water for the first few hours then adding in some nuts, 90% dark chocolate, some fruit and one em’s bar. That was pretty much it for the day and it worked much better than previous days.

It was another hot one today with my garmin getting up to 35c (believe it if you will). I knew that I needed to keep my effort in check. So if I was not at the front I had no hesitation in letter others push on if it took me out of my comfort zone. It was all about survival. 

For some reason I had in my head that the Iseran was just a gradual climb. Oh how wrong I was. Certainly the 40km approach is up and down but once onto the final 20km it was relentless with km after km of 8-9%. It was so cool as we rode into the snowline by which time I was solo and happy enough just tapping out all I had in the tank. The 2^nd to last km kicked to 10% and as caught and passed Julian, who had left earlier, he suggested I look out for the marmotte (small beaver like anaimals) off to the right. I didn’t even reply as the only think I could focus on was the tunnel vision that was taking me to the top. The air was thin the grade was steep and whilst I was loving where I was I had just one focus which was getting to the top. 

To close out the day we had a long descent with a 5km climb up to Station du Sainte Foy Tarentaise. All done I had 7hrs47mins moving time on the clock. It was very very long and hot and I was totally done. Our accommodation c/o Preiere Neige was simply stunning. We have two big chalets with hot tubs, sauna’s, our own chef and some stunning views. I'm going to enjoy some downtime here tomorrow!