3 days to go..rain and whispy clouds

We took one look outside this morning and changed our training plans. We postponed cycling part of the rest of the route until Thursday (as sun forecast) and decided to focus on other prep instead.

Clothing
As rain is forecast for Sunday's race, we decided to review what else we needed. Fortunately we have trained in torrential rain in Yorkshire with the LEJOG team earlier in May (thanks guys!) and have all the kit with us (although packed away) After digging out the waterproof trousers, beanie; Altura not so waterproof gloves and bum bag, we were still missing essential things.

The bike shops are starting to get crowded and stock running low on waterproof essentials in medium size, such as overshoes but all shops still have plenty of windproof stuff! Get in quickly if you are staying in the region or make sure you bring enough kit from home.


Today's purchases:

Jo: CRAFT lightweight windproof beanie; Mavic techdry+ overshoes;bike line neck muff;

Sarah:

For us both: Milk, batteries and bananas!








More on the route
As the route does not go into some of the local towns and villages we decided to check out Cortina and a village called Marmalada.

Both are in magnificent valleys; Marmalada is in the valley below Sarah (taking a photo on right)

The rain gave us a perfect excuse for stop for an espresso in each place. Especially as there do not seem to be public toilets anywhere.
The low whispy cloud is the post rain effect we have seen almost everywhere in these mountains.








We decided not to cycle Passo di Giau before the day itself so to conserve energy (tomorrow's training ride will bypass it) as it is the toughest with 10km of ascent at 10% with 29 acute switchbacks... it seems to go on forever.

 We drove up it instead to find hundreds of mad cyclists racing it in the rain.

We used the opportunity to take some photos.  One of the most frustrating things as a female cyclist is where you can find a toilet stop. It is ok for the men (many just use the side of the road) and many today on the top of Giau did not care who was in the vicinity; the need must have been that great as bikes were just flung on the dirt across the car park. I suppose it gives us an excuse to stop in a cafe on the race day but we are still hoping the organisers arrange some portable loos on the route.

After Giau we stopped to take photos of Cortina and the valley below

 before heading up to Passo di Valparola. More on that tomorrow as we cycle through it.

Health wise we are both reasonably fit for this race but there is always some eccentric behaviour on display.
Jo has developed a chesty cough from cycling in the rain yesterday and (desperate to get a remedy before Sunday)  resorted to opening a very stubborn cough medicine bottle with a cork screw.
Sarah has headed to the sauna to relax (she will be bouncing around like a Duracell bunny tomorrow as she has not done enough exercise today) but is excited about the amount of energy food we are amassing pre race :)

Overall it has been a very relaxing recovery, shopping and planning day. We now know what to expect from Passo do Giau and will have to pace ourselves to get up it without killing ourselves in the process. Thankfully we both have heart rate monitors; you never know as we old girls get short of breath easily...:)