Alex Dowsett: The Highs and Lows of Bike Racing - Part Two

"California was an interesting camp, good old sod’s law reared its head again as for the 6 days we’d be staying there the worst storm in 5 years hit!

This meant 1 day of fine weather riding, 1 day of wet weather riding and 4 days of my beloved turbo training ensued! Needless to say I cracked again on the last day!

Otherwise it was a good camp, was good to meet back up with the team, plus a few new faces and talking seriously about the year ahead - I’m pretty excited about it!!

Next stop was Boulder Colorado, my hometown for the season.

The first thing that hit me was the cold fresh air - at 5,430ft at altitude small hills became mountains and mountains were unrideable because of snow!

I prayed for a bedroom on the ground floor as a flight of stairs would leave me breathless, but it wasn’t to be! The team house is nice - Reed who is one of the team sauigneurs (carer) has sorted and kitted it out - the man is a legend!

I did have a few teething problems, setting up a bank account was easy but the bank managed to spell my name wrong which wasn’t ideal and buying a mobile phone was nothing short of a nightmare!

Basically it would’ve been easier to buy a gun than a phone but it’s done and I’m now the proud owner of a Blackberry and a fine dent in my new bank account!

On a more serious note I did come down with a bout of altitude sickness. After a reasonable steady 3 hour ride into the hills I came back feeling like I’d finished a Tour de France!

I spent the afternoon in bed yet it wasn’t until that evening when I got up to make dinner it hit me - it felt like I was mildly suffocating on thin air as well as being nauseous and vomiting! Mum phoned the hospital to see if it could be Haemophilia related and Reed bought me some energy/electrolyte drinks round to get me re-hydrated as I’d dropped 3kgs in 12 hours!!

The hospital said it wasn’t related but I should have factor 8 due to possible stomach tears from vomiting. I took the following day off then gently eased myself back into training, keeping my routes very flat.

Otherwise I’m pretty well settled into the house and the city is nice, everywhere is very spaced out and I described it as feeling agoraphobic to my Mum and she seemed amused that I didn’t like all this space!"

Alex Dowsett: The Highs and Lows of Bike Racing - Part One

In this post, Alex tells us about his winter training, Christmas and his first training camp with his new team:

"Hey everyone!

Hope all your Christmas celebrations went well and a happy new year too, I spent the whole break with my family which was lovely!

I spend a lot of time away from home and I miss Mum & Dad and Lois tons so I guess that makes the festive season with them extra special. We used to go away on holiday but now that I spend most of my time away I personally prefer some time away from hotels/airports etc and although I’m reminded (in a light-hearted way of course) about what they sacrifice in terms of holidays so I have my own way I really appreciate it from them.

The camp in Tucson, Arizona in December went very well. It’s a pretty amazing setup within the new team and made even more inspiring by the fact that Lance Armstrong himself was there along with his team mates from the newly formed Radioshack Pro team. It became clear early on that the emphasis of this camp was more of a ‘meet and greet’ than actual training. We did ride everyday but not very long or hard.

Our days were far from empty though as there were always new sponsors to meet and hear them talk about their products. It was amazing to see each of them had the same thing in common: to give us whatever support they could and to encourage us to give them feedback on their product. These are some big companies and it’s an honour to be asked to help them let alone have them helping me!

We had a couple of nights out and I gelled well with the team. They found me pretty novel being the ‘Brit’ and I seemed to be able to make the guys laugh just by talking about nothing in particular!

Training at home over the winter was interrupted by the weather.

I spent a fair few hours on the mountain bike or on the turbo trainer which, for those who think this sounds cool I can assure you isn’t, it’s a static road where you can set the level of resistance and I also like to refer to it as an instrument of torture made worse by my sadistic nature of wanting to see bigger power and heart rate numbers each day!

Needless to say I cracked and couldn’t bear to see the sight of the thing, let alone ride it!

I’ll have you know I did in fact train on Christmas Day, although when I say training, I did an hour loop to the pub!

The first half of January went pretty quickly and before I knew it, it was time to leave good old England and head for the States, this time though for a long spell until June/July. I thought I was used to leaving and figured this would be no different. Although it’s further away from home, the way I see it is that away from home is away from home whether your in another county or another country, but this was different – it’s the longest spell I’ll be spending away and it did dawn on me then that America is quite a far away, not just from my family but from things like knowing I have the Royal London Hospital if I get into trouble or anything.

I put this to the back of my mind though, as a cyclist if you think things like crashes and punctures, they usually happen immediately so I try and put that negative stuff away into a small box labelled ‘sods law’ in the back of my mind and that’s where all this ‘what if’ stuff went!"

Next time Alex tells us about training in California and his home for the season: Boulder, Colarado!

Tour of Qatar 2010

Alex sends us this message from Qatar:


"I’m sitting in a luxury hotel room in the Ritz Carlton in Qatar (yes I know, the Ritz!) awaiting my first race starting Sunday 7th Feb, the Pro Tour of Qatar:

http://www.letour.fr/indexTQA_us.html

I’d be lying if I said I was enjoying the experience though, but this is a notoriously gruelling 6-day race on pan-flat roads, in a sandy desert with raging winds!

To add insult to injury some of the best riders in the world are here and we are the lowest ranked team competing...but it is a chance in a lifetime against some of the Worlds current superstars in cycling: Bradley Wiggins, Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen to name just a few!

I’ll give it my all as always and hope for a shot at a result somewhere along the line but I think getting through it will be my first major concern!

After this we have a day off (which will be spent travelling, surprise-surprise) followed by another similarly tough level 6-day race in Oman: the Tour of Oman (the event names are incredibly original aren't they?!).

Given that I get through both events I’ll be taking a good week easy after these races I can assure you!!"


Don't forget you can get 'live' updates direct from the man himself by following Alex on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/alexdowsett

Follow Alex Dowsett on Twitter!

You can now follow Alex Dowsett on Twitter as he trains and competes with Lance Armstrong's Trek-Livestrong team:

http://twitter.com/alexdowsett

Username: @alexdowsett

For those of you that don't already know, Alex suffers from severe Haemophilia A.

He is currently waiting for the start of the tour of Qatar which starts on Sunday and is being shown on Eurosport at 12:15:

http://tv.eurosport.co.uk/

Good luck to Alex!

Alex Dowsett 2009 Season Review - Part Three of Three

The final part of Alex Dowsett's review of his 2009 season:

"As you may have heard from this website now, off the back of the result at the World Time Trials I have signed for the Trek-Livestrong team!

It’s an incredible opportunity as I’ll be living in Colorado, America which is at 4,000m altitude and I’ll be racing all over the world for one of the most well respected development teams worldwide!

In the short term I have a training camp in Arizona in December, another one in California in January followed by our first race in Saudi Arabia on Feb 7th, the Tour of Qatar.

It’s going to be a good year!

Another apology for this blog update being so long - if you’re still reading: thank you!

I must add that all this time, crashes and races I’ve always kept on top of my Medication.

I’m on prophylaxis usually 3 times a week but take it according to when I’m on the bike.

Touch-wood I haven’t had any problems and everyone at The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel and Healthcare has been incredibly supportive and I’d like to say a big thanks to them.

I’ll be in touch soon, with a briefer update I’m sure!"

Alex Dowsett 2009 Season Review - Part Two of Three

The second part of Alex Dowsett's review of 2009:

"I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous before a race until the 23rd September 09 - after such a terrible season I felt my career depended on this one 42 minute race!

And last year it had gone very badly and not really for any obvious reason.

On the day I got my warm-up right and headed to the start line going over everything I’d planned over the last 2 months knowing it all came down to the next hour.

I knew the course - I’d been round it 3 times and watched it on DVD countless times: every corner, every incline and descent, every pothole, where I needed to rest, where I needed to really dig deep, where I needed to take my heart in my mouth and dive into a corner at 40mph knowing I didn’t need to brake!

I was well and truly in the zone, but there was the one thing that worried me, the one thing over which I had no control: the opposition!

I’d done everything I could but so had the other 65 guys taking to the line.

These guys were all selected for being the best time trialists from all the top cycling countries from around the world so it was a daunting prospect!!

I knew who the main men were: the defending champ Italian Adriano Malori who had beaten me by a minute over 10miles earlier in the year; Jack Bobridge from Australia who had already signed for a pro team; Marcel Kittel from Germany who beat me by 1min15 in the European Champs; plus a few more!

I concentrated on my ride, gear selections, position on the bike everything and was slowly catching my minute man which was a good sign but of course gave me no clue as to where I laid overall.

After completing the first lap of 2 my coach, Olympic Gold medallist Paul Manning told me I was sitting in 3rd place. I was relieved and although I wasn’t leading, with only 5 or 6 riders starting after me I knew I was on for a good result and really drove on.

I finished and was laying in 4th but 3 riders finishing after me that went quicker gave me 7th place.

I knew my future in cycling was secure! I knew I still had it in me after a year of a lot of self doubt and I knew I was able to compete with the best in the world!

With the relief came a feeling of being gutted, 16s over 41minutes of racing would have got me onto the podium in 3rd behind winner Jack Bobridge and an unknown Portugese rider, which left me thinking what could I have changed in my preparation to get them 16s.

It will have to wait for next year!"

In the final instalment we hear Alex's thoughts on being signed by Lance Armstrong's Trek-LiveStrong team!

Alex Dowsett 2009 Season Review - Part One of Three

Alex Dowsett has sent us his review of his 2009 racing season - in today's first installment we hear about all the problems he encountered early on:

"Hi everyone!

Firstly I must apologise for having not been in touch as much as I’d planned, it’s been a whirlwind season with a lot more downs than ups, but it’s ended on a high with 7th place in the Under 23 World TT champs in September and selection onto Lance Armstrong’s development squad: Trek-Livestrong, for 2010.

Everything started well and althought I was flying in March/April, but for a variety of different reasons I never came up with the results of which I was capable - as well as tactical mistakes on my part I endured crashes and stomach problems.

Then came my mid-season and with it came even more crashes (as you can see from the lovely photo of my leg after coming off at 40mph) plus the added hazard of losing too much weight.

Weight is vital in cycling, races are often won and lost on climbs and how much you're carrying up makes a massive difference.

There’s a very fine line between being totally on top of your game to being underpowered and asking yourself why - something I experienced the hard way! I’ll explain this in more detail another time.

I never really came around from this spell properly until the end of July when I went back to Italy for the last stint of the season.

August/September started badly.

It was selection time for some big stage races and I’d been chosen to represent GB in the Tour of Britain because of my skills of leading our sprinters out for the finish, but unfortunately the team fell through and I was left with no racing at all!

There was a glimmer of hope in getting into the Tour of Ireland with team Halfords but the logistics of guesting for another team bought that opportunity to a halt too. This left me with no racing at all and pretty disappointed.

However it was a blessing in disguise and allowed me to focus all my efforts into the Worlds Time Trial.

Being based in Britain for this period had its benefits: Mum’s cooking; Mum washing my clothes; Mum basically looking after me!

And of course being closer to my coaches Steve China and Paul Manning!

I raced in Britain a bit too, taking the Richmond GP and a few local Time Trial and Road race wins too.

I also took the U23 National Time Trial title too for a second year running!

I then went back out to Tuscany, Italy for a week, which is where the U23 GB team is based to get used to the hot conditions again and add the finishing touches to my preparation for the Worlds in Switzerland."

Next time in Part Two we hear all about Alex's preparation for his big race at the World Time Trial Championships and how the race itself unfolded!