Essential is the ability to drive long distances without being tired the next day. This can be trained. In cycling, this is the basic endurance and you train it through long and slow units. Ideally, 150 km at a slow speed where you can still talk. Professionals ride 200 – 300 km a day in January, February, 5 days in a row, sleep 2 days and then again. They do this for weeks and get this incredible ability to ride long distances without much energy expenditure.

So I took a vacation, flew to Girona to ride up the coast via Montpellier, Marseilles, Nice, Genoa to Varese. Then to spend more training days at Lake Maggiore. With a small backpack just go and ride the first contiguous 1000 km. Also so a small beautiful adventure.

On the rest day in Genoa I discovered this wonderful place in an inconspicuous, historic house in the old town. What a place. To the food does not need to report great, it was appropriate for the ambience. I will not withhold the picture from you. You could say that the effort was worth it.

Of course, Lake Constance also offers fantastic opportunities to train these long and slow units, although there is still quite a bit of elevation gain with all the hills in the back yard.

In addition to all these Bodensee, Allgäu, Vorarlberg training rounds, of course, the training at the Credit Suisse Fitness Club. Pretty disciplined every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays 1h spinning and Krafttaining helped lively and always stay in the tension.

At the end you always have the impression not to have done enough. Or as my cycling friend Christoph recently said, well, you don’t have 10,000 km in your legs. But I don’t race …

Will be all right …