Alpine training and the odd glass of wine

The week in Alpe D'Huez has been great. Lots of hard skiing followed by the odd glass of wine. That said, yesterday I taught myself to (inefficiently) cross country ski. My first outing was a success and I covered about 7- or 8-km in total and climbed about 1000ft in one hour-long blast after lunch, I'm glad to say without barfing!

It's safe to say I have developed a new found respect for cross country skiers. This is hard graft, especially climbing. Surprisingly, going downhill is much tougher because you only have the front of your foot strapped to the ski and no stiff boots preventing you from falling backwards. So I had some pretty spectacular comedy falls, unfortunately these occurred where loads of people were watching and subsequently pissed themselves laughing at me.