Here ya go..

Total: 139,8 km

Time: 5h37

Ascent: 3120 mts

Wet and 11ºC

Route: CNEA -> Font Romeu -> Egat -> Ur (1180m) -> head right to Ax les Thermes -> Latour de Carol -> Carol -> Porté-Puymorens -> Col de Puymorens (1920m) - > Hospitalet prés-L'Andorre -> Ax les Thermes (746m) -> Col de Pailhéres (2001m) -> Formigueres -> Mont Louis -> Col Calvaire (1835m) -> CNEA.

Miss lunch's cut-off and eat just bread instead. Sleep. More to come in the afternoon.

Killing me softly

Sunday: brick 150 km + 30' - ouch! It had been a while since I rode for so long..

Monday: 4km water, 85km wheels, 55' feet

Tuesday: 4km water, NO wheels, 1'30 farlek run

Wednesday: 5km water, 110 km wheels with race pace, 1h20 climbing to 2100 meters

Tomorow there's a 150 km ride in perspective (you never know for how long will you last with all this climbing..) with some aquatics in the afternoon. I need someone less fit to ride with me. Sergio is tough and I need someone to just drop back! At this point I'm the one more likely to drop back. I need to get back to Font Romeu with some chicks. Other than super-star triathletes of course.

Well.. I'm loving it but already miss some people back at home. This place is lonely and it's crowded with Russians, Polacs and Kazaks. Creepy. The fellas from Hungary are the few who are really friendly.

Almost there. 8 days in, 16 to go.

First report from France

After the 13h drive (of which, 7h sleep) marathon to get from Lisbon to the Pyrenees, Sergio and I have been enjoying a fairly easy week of acclimatization. Everything looks the same so the training routine has been easy to adapt to. Not many triathletes around, a few from Hungary I believe but that's it. July is a racing month and the European Championship (ITU short course) is happening tomorow so nothing to be surprised with. In fact, most of the POR National Team is racing there as well.

And that's it. You actually do nothing here other than train, eat and sleep. I came prepared with season 4 and 5 of Six Feet Under and a few from Dexter's (all legal stuff, of course) but what I'm really looking forward is to be SO tired that I can't even see them without falling asleep in the middle. That state of tireness/soreness will be engaged tomorow after the first big day with a 5hr ride to La Seul d'Urgell and back up high to 1850 mts powering thru 5x6 min at race effort and off to a transition run.

Summerfest and the comeback

Summerfest rocked. We had Police in Dub leaving with "Roxanne" on our mind before a somekind of Backstreet Boys from Mexico pumping the crowd up (Culcha Cadela?).

But the real deal was Justin Nozuka. For those who have heard his first album (Holly, 2007) the show was great. And he's only 21 yo. Then Mishka and Tiken Jah Fakoly would

close the summer fest but that's just too much reggae dub for me. Oh and started to rain and we needed ice cream!

The next day, I had another race in the schedule. One last one before heading out to Font Romeu and stay there for 20 days. Short course triathlon in Abrantes, with pooring rain and a TOUGH bike course. I had a alright swim and bike but then faded a lot on the run. Nothing bad happened but maybe I was kind of tired from all the insane training (with the kiddos) this last week and probably messed up from al the racing this month. Still I was really happy to see Vanessa back on form. In Portugal, man and woman race together and they can ride with us. Vanessa not only did just that for most of the day (finishing 4th place overall) as she was pushing the pace giving us - mortal men - a hard time. Coming from altitute last monday, José Estrangeiro and Vasco Pessoa were one and two at the finishing line but man.. Vanessa is REALLY back.

Busy weekend while talents kick butt in DC and Tarzo Revine

While others win medals in Tarzo Revine and college kids crush World talents in DC, I myself had a busy weekend.

Two more races in the bag for me. Six races in 20 days so I'm well in route on my Vabrousek fantasy cup! :-)

Sathurday: 2hr early spin, 8km road run. Bested my 26:20 from last year with a 25:56 this time around, results here.

Sunday: 1hr early spin, Portuguese Cup Duathlon in Arraiolos (somewhere past the sun with a 40ºC stamp at race time). Lino Barruncho won, I controlled the teams and got second for the team's win, results here.

BUT what I'm really looking forward to is this, live next sathurday in Ericeira:

Photos from Zarautz

Lunch

Zarautz at 1 pm

Start

Transition

Out of T1

Lap 2

The Llanos brothers worked together to build a nice lead over the field

The only guy who really challenged the Llanos lead on the bike was Mikel Elgezabal with an insane 2h07 split! Wow.

When most of audience was wondering if I died during my way up Aia, here I enter T2.

To complete the day of insane racing, Clement stunned everyone with a 1h08 run split but was yet short on the podium.

Hundreds of people gathered around the course to cheer the athletes

Martina Dogana came all the away from Italy to take second place behind the spanish star Ana Murua

Done with the race we took our time to enjoy the finish line area before heading for a huge pizza and back home.

Finisher in Zarautz

When I got to drive the bike course, I got scared. But with reason. The swim was ok, I drafted the front pack most of the way but lost them with a rookie mistake. I was out maybe 45s behind. Then the bike. The course is hilly but THE climb to Aia is really something else and probably the hardest (on a half-ironman) I ever did. The crowd is awesome and they work remarkably in getting the athletes up that freaking hill. I spent most of the bike waiting for it but still got to Aia half dead. The run is mostly flat on three loops of about 7k. Again, the crowd on the streets is huge and the noise is so loud you can't even hear yourself. I was really smashed once I got to T2 so I put cruise control to get it done. I did however finish the thing in 5th overall. I was half a day behind the leaders but this' a race I need to come back for a rematch. Next time I will bring at least a rear 23 and some candys to distribuite while I run! :-)

Eneko Llanos won in 3h54 (!). I heard the front guys really put a show on the road today with Mikel Elgezabal biking his way to third and then out running the older Llanos for second. Clemente seem to have a blast on the run but was a bit short of the podium. They all were very close at the end. I need to work harder.

Top 10:

1. Eneko Llanos
2. Mikel Elgezabal
3. Hektor Llanos
4. Clemente Alonso
5. Pedro Gomes
6. Roberto Acebedo
7. Egoitz Erbiti
8. Jon Unanue
9. Richard Martinez
10. Felix Martinez

Full results are here.

Next stop, Portuguese Cup, sprint duathlon.

More from Fernando and the bike in Zarautz

From yesterday's triathlon:

Today we went for a drive thru the bike course here in Zarautz. Wow.

The first three peaks are fairly soft compared to that last hill. It's brutal. Something like 8-15% for maybe 3-4km and then a dangerous downhill (or free fall) back into town. A road bike wouldn't be crazy for this course. The place - Zarautz - is gorgeous. I'm falling in love with the Basque Country.

Another one bites the dust

Another triathlon done yesterday with a nice 5km tempo run at the end. This time and after catching up with the lead swimmers with just 2km on the bike course, I let things flow through T2. We got caught by a big pack with some fast kiddos. Out of T2, I manage to break away with my team mate Miguel Fernandes and we stayed in control the rest of the race. Miguel won, I got second and with Lino coming in 6th my tri-club dominated yet another event of the Portuguese Cup. Full results are here.

I'm off now to Zarautz. Half-Ironman happening sathurday! I now have a "Hello Kitty" sticker on my top tube so I'm pretty excited to get the kitty going! :-)

He's the man

Fernando Lobato http://www.lobatophoto.com/