Stage 4 - Alpe D'Huez Time Trial

After the horrendous day that was stage 3 I woke up having had a pretty rough night, I'm still not sleeping well and this morning I had a sore throat! The good news was that the weather was fantastic! Clear blue sky and beautiful scenery all around, it certainly lifted my spirits. 

As I was in the middle of the field my start time was not until 10:24 so I had time to sort through my case and have a leisurely breakfast. My legs felt a bit wooden as I walked to breakfast but I hoped they would loosen up before my start time. 

I had originally planned to have a proper go at this stage if I made it through the marathon stage as It's such an iconic climb I wanted to do it justice but with the croaky throat and wooden legs I had to revise my plan, I still had 3 tough stages to get through and although I was proud of myself for toughing it out on Stage 3 I still had self doubts. I decided to take it easy for the first 3 KM's which is the steepest section then see if I could increase the pace in the middle and then full gas for the last 3 KM's, the planned worked out pretty well and I did the official Tdf climb in 1:06 but of course this being the Haute route we did 15k instead of 12.4 which is the official length and my time was 1:16, I was happy enough with that and only lost a few places in the overall............another day done!

I spent the rest of the day resting & eating and getting ready for the longest stage of the week down to Dignes.