I don't believe it

What a weekend of sport.
The papers are full of analysis of the mens' Wimbledon final, and there are at least two articles about Bjorn Borg. When I was a lad he was The Man. He ruled the game. Clearly he had the game for grass, but his main asset was his incredible temperament. The cliche which will be repeated ad nauseum will be 'ice cool' but it sums him up perfectly. No matter what was happening on the court, he registered no emotion and, more importantly, his game never wavered. He is a legend. When he was finally beaten by McCenroe, he shocked the world by announcing his sudden unexpected retirement from the game. He has subsequently declared that he was never enjoying himself when he was playing tennis. How very odd. I would have thought he was having a ball out there thrashing everyone. I would love to be doing that. A one-on-one combative and gladiatorial game, played out in front of the eyes of the world. I hope he his a contented man. Glory and respect last forever.

Lewis Hamilton looks as if he has the mental side of things pretty much sewn up. Despite everything going off around him, he just gets on with his job. You can't help but think old Monty would have been one of the all time great golfers if he had been able to control the psychological side of things.
I suppose none of us really know if we've got it upstairs until the chips are down. When I was doing the Hampshire Hilly 100 I spent a lot of time riding with a guy who is also doing the Etape. He was telling me about his first attempt the previous year, and how he blew up on the first climb. He described how he was psyched out by the sheer magnitude of the mountain. He finished eventually, but the Etape experience for him was a bad one and he took no good memories from the day.

I can't stress how much I want my Etape to be a day of good memories and experiences. Obviously the number one priority is to finish. Then I want to have enjoyed the atmosphere, the crowd, the climbs, the descents, the scenery... the whole lot of it. I'm not trying to get a medal. I also want to avoid too much dehydration with the accompanying headache and wasted feeling.

For those of us with access to Eurosport TV, the Tour de France has been amazing so far. Basically, we've got live coverage of the entire prologue and first stage. Wouldn't it be funny if they covered L'Etape du Tour? I'll have to make certain that I record the programme on the day when the pros do the stage from Foix to Loudenvielle so that I can relive the event through the eyes of the TV cameras.

I'm planning to do another gentle ride today, and then will do a full-on 20 mile 'time-trial' on Tuesday to see if I can beat my record time. Then Wednesday and Thursday will be leisurely recuperative rides just to wind down and keep my legs going. I don't want to stop completely because it doesn't suit my physiology. I'll make certain that my legs are not stressed too much so that any muscle damage will be repaired by the weekend.

I've just checked my travel itinerary and I've realised that my flight next Saturday is not early morning, but late evening. This is good and bad. It means I avoid a ridiculous early start in order to set off, but I'm going to arrive in my hotel around midnight on the Saturday. On the Sunday, I'll have to reconstruct the bike after the journey, and then report to race control to check-in and claim my race number and transponder. I'm anticipating sleep deprivation, rushing and anxiety. It's going to be worse for Jacko and Atkinson, cos they've got to drive our vehicles to Loudenvielle and then get on the coach in order to return to the Foix. That will be a 5 hour round journey. It's all part of the Etape experience.