• Meals: Dinner

On arrival at the airport in Carcasonne airport (depending on your chosen departure date), you’ll be greeted by our training coach for the week, who will transfer us to his period 16th century house in Chalabre. The house is full of quirky nooks and crannies and is in fact a converted shoe factory.

Once we’ve unpacked and settled into our rooms we will gather together for our first evening meal of the week. Here we will have our first taste of the healthy, tasty training food made from local produce and prepared daily by our very own trained chef.

We will also have the opportunity to enjoy a glass or two of locally produced Midi-Pyrenees region wine, and a chance to get to know each other and chat about what might be in store for us in the week ahead.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner

After a hearty breakfast, our coach will spend time with us showing us how to put together a specific and targeted yearly training plan, and how to break this down into monthly and weekly periods. Each training plan is designed with personal goals, targets, weaknesses and limiters in mind, with a view to demonstrating over the week how to put these training sessions into action.

Once the finer points of creating an annual training plan have been discussed, and how periodisation works, it will be time for our first taste of these French roads!

Our first ride will be an opportunity to see how to ride within the zones described in our training plans – for example a 2 hour ride in zone 3, developing our aerobic capacity and endurance, followed by a 1 hour ride in zone 2 for recovery and base training.

At the end of every day our coach will discuss with us the reasons behind the type of training we have covered, what systems the training develops, and how, when and why we would incorporate this type of training into our annual training plans. We will also be told how to recover, how to test for results and what results to expect.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner

Our second day in the saddle represents the first real challenge of our Pyrenees Fitness Week, as we will enjoy a medium paced 100km plus ride from our base at Chalabre to the summit of a Cat 2 climb, such as Col de Port for example. This ride will allow us to get used to spending long periods of time climbing in the saddle using moderate exertion, and a chance for our coach to advise us on our selection of gears, climbing technique and bike position.

At the summit of the climb there will be a short break for food and drink, and to chat through the finer points of descending a col. We will then descend before using the return leg to Chalabre to spin the legs in zone 2 and recover from climbing your our first French Col of the week. Once back at Chalabre, we will deservedly tuck into our delicious home cooked dinner, basking in the glory of our day’s achievements out in the Pyrenees.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner

With any training plan, recovery is just as important as the training itself, as it gives the body an opportunity to adapt, replenish energy stores, flush out the lactic acid and repair damaged tissues. Without recovery, there can be no further training without risking illness or over training. With this in mind, we will enjoy a gentle paced recovery ride at an easy pace to the historic town of Carcassonne. This will give us an opportunity to take a more relaxed look at the vast and varied French countryside, and just enjoy being out on the bike. At Carcassonne we will have the opportunity to take in the beauty of this fortified town, sample local cuisine and tradition, before heading back to our base at Chalabre where we can relax and prepare ourselves mentally for the challenges that lay ahead for the rest of the week.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner

As in Le Tour, a rest day is usually followed by what is referred to as a ‘selection’ stage. This is where the true contenders for the overall classification show their hand. For us, it will be a chance to ascend an ‘Hors Catégorie’ (beyond categorisation) climb.

Today’s ride will allow us to work on our power and recovery, as we climb our col, group size allowing, riders will be shown how to take it in turns to attack in short, sharp bursts off the front at high intensity exertion and then allow the group to swallow them back up. Whilst riding in the group, we will be riding at medium to moderate exertion level. We will take time to work on climbing position, pedalling technique, how to accelerate out of the saddle on a climb, and how to recover in the group.

After a fuel break at the summit, we will descend the mountain, with the intention of improving our technical ability and develop our descending skills, learning how to tuck into the aero position, brake for the corners, and then to attack out of them before returning to the tuck position.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner

Today we will have an opportunity to put into practice all the training methods we have learned so far and our final big day in the Midi-Pyrenees. Leaving our base at Chalabre, we will head out at a medium pace, past meadows and lakes before contending a light-hearted sprint. With the fun and games over, the serious business of tackling a col or two begins. Descending the other side will be the opportunity to use the knowledge and techniques from the previous day.

We will then ride our final climb as if we are setting the pace at the front of the peleton, attempting to drop all our nearest rivals, riding in zone 5, with the final km of the climb to be ridden as close to the maximum (or zone 6) as is sustainable. Once at the top, we will have time to eat, drink and recover, before being taken back to our base at Chalabre.

• Meals: Breakfast, dinner

Similar to riding day 3, today will be an opportunity for us to spin the effects of the weeks training sessions out of the legs and kick start our body’s adaptation and recovery processes. After our exertion on all of the climbs we’ve been treated to, we will be offered a leisurely recovery ride over some of the less challenging roads on offer in the Aude Departement. It will give us an opportunity to truly enjoy the picturesque French countryside without having to focus so much on the training specific elements of our trip, and also a chance to talk with our coach on the road about the finer points of the training sessions and techniques we have covered during our Pyrenees Fitness Week.

We will once again make a stop to sample some of the local cuisine and enjoy a glass of locally produced red wine before heading back to our base at Chalabre for an opportunity to wind down after our week of training, and sadly, start packing for our return home.

• Meals: Breakfast

After our final home cooked breakfast of the week we will transfer back to Carcassonne airport (depending on your chosen departure) for the journey home, hopefully feeling fitter and stronger and brimming with confidence!