September 6, 2003 – Hi Michael: Great season so far and I hope you have a great Vuelta. What sort of preparation have you done for a three week tour, in a nutshell, since we saw you last at the Nationals in Hamilton? How does one prepare for a race of this length?

Cheers,

Greg Morrison,
Hamilton, Ontario

Michael's Reponse:

Hi Greg,

Since the Nationals in Canada I have spent quite a bit of time on the bike getting ready for the Vuelta d'Espana. After the Canadian Road Nationals I had an easy week and then began training solidly in Girona, Spain. My teammate Matt White came up to Girona and rode with me for 10 days. I spent a few days in the gym lifting weights, did many long rides with mountains, and TT intervals on the flats. At the end of July we started racing again in the Tour de la Region Wallone, a five-day race, and as soon as that race was over we raced at the World Cup in Hamburg.

The first three weeks of August were full of racing with the San Sebastian World Cup, the Tour de L'Ain (a stage race in the French Alps) and the Zurich World Cup in Switzerland. After Zurich I had a few days off and then went up to the Pyrenees to train with Floyd Landis, Whitey and Julian Dean. My wife Dede came up as well and rode with us quite a bit. It was a good few days of training in the big mountains. While in Girona I also rode a lot with George Hincapie.

Essentially, most of our training rides were based around Vuelta stages. Either time trial training or mountain intervals. The week before the race started we rested quite a bit and then the two days prior to the race rode our TT bikes and practised the TTT course. Thanks for the question and all the best…

Michael

Along with coverage of each stage of the Tour of Spain, Pedal is once again offering our very popular daily Q&A with USPS' Michael Barry. During Tour of Spain, Pedal readers can email their questions for Michael, pertaining to the race itself or general questions regarding Michael's training or racing schedule. Simply email “Matt Hansen” mattsh@hotmail.com> and cc to pedal@passport.ca. Michael will do his best to answer as many questions as he can after every stage. For more about Barry, visit michaelbarry.ca