April 3, 2007 – After a disappointing start to the season with two bouts of sickness and poor form, I stepped on the plane to Belgium last weekend with a little more confidence in my stride as I had managed to put together ten good days of training since I had abandoned Paris Nice. The training I did was designed specifically for where I was at physically and set up by our team trainer with the idea of not stressing my lungs too much initially, while still somewhat weakened by the irritation due to coughing and congestion, yet in maintaining and building my strength so as not to lose any muscle mass or conditioning.

For one week, my training was progressive starting from two hours on a Tuesday and ending with five hours on the Sunday. In each session I kept a steady wattage, below my lactate threshold, but did short sprints at intervals throughout the ride to load my muscles. After my lungs were clear and back to normal I was able to integrate climbing intervals with oscillations in speed, rpm and intensity that were designed to simulate a race. By the end of two weeks of training I felt as if I was slowly finding my pedal stroke again.

Brabantse Pijl is one of the harder semi-classics with a hilly finish circuit; it is also one of the final tests for the riders hoping to race well at the Tour of Flanders this coming weekend. Throughout the two hundred kilometer race, I wondered how I would fair in the difficult finale””I was okay and managed to animate the race, reel in a potent breakaway and set our leader, Kim Kirchen, up for an attack which decided the race.

In the coming week, I will continue training intensely with my major objectives two weeks down the road at the Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Romandy. I will race at the Tour of the Basque country next week where hopefully my fitness will continue to improve and I can help the team achieve some results.