After 5 and a half weeks on tour I am back in Lillehammer. I started this year's "summer holiday" with a successful altitude camp in Bessans, France. The first ten days were under the national team management, after that most of the athletes extended their altitude stay with a couple of days, and the last week I spent alone. In total, I stayed 'high' for 25 days. It was very instructive to see how my body reacted to altitude training. I experienced how important it is to go slow enough during training and to check feeling and pulse with lactate measurements. It took me approximately a week to get accustomed to the altitude, I could verify this with HRV measurements, my resting pulse and pulse on training normalized, and I felt more "fresh" in everyday life. Then we could train normal again and start with harder sessions. Bessans is located right next to the highest paved mountain pass in the Alps, the Col de l' Iseran (2770 m). We had many trips up there, both on roller skis and bicycles, with low and high intensity, perfect for working on one of my weaknesses, the V2 skate technique.

After 25 days in Bessans, I stayed 5 days in beautiful Les Contamines-Montjoie to re-acclimate before a new training camp and the Belgian Championships.

We started the camp in Elsenborn with the Belgian championship which consisted of two days of competitions, sprint on Saturday followed by mass start on Sunday. The French B- team also participated and gave us a good fight until the finish. This was the first test this year to put together what we have been training for all summer, and for me there were many positive answers. I ended up taking home the victory and becoming Belgian champion. We were in Elsenborn just over a week before it was time to go home and recharge the batteries for the last training period before the season starts!