An elite cyclist has three main obstacles on the road to success: crashing, bonking, and getting
dehydrated. Lance Armstrong lost over six kilograms of body weight between waking up and finishing
Stage 12 yesterday, all of it fluid. That's 8% of his body weight! The fact that he lost some of his
power was understandable, and the facts he rode as well as he did yesterday and today are
remarkable.
Of a cyclist's three main obstacles, crashing is sometimes preferable because if it is a minor fall,
once you chase back on you can continue racing at full power. On the hand, once you run out of
either fuel (bonking) or fluids (dehydration), there's no way to regain your power until you
replenish what you're missing. A 2% loss of body weight due to dehydration leads to a 10-15% drop in
sustainable power. If you lose 5-8% of your body weight, you can lose at least 20% of your power.
Such extreme fluid loss also puts you at serious risk for heat exhaustion, a condition characterized
by a rise in core temperature due to a decreased ability to cool the body through sweating.
Dehydration has other, more far-reaching effects on performance as well. In an effort to continue
racing at high speed, a dehydrated rider has to dig very deep and expend more energy per unit time
than normal. That means that even though Lance was slower than usual during Stage 12, his effort
level was higher than normal. Recovering from such an effort, and replenishing his lost fluids,
takes time.
Lance Armstrong knew today was going to be tough. Your body is more efficient at pulling fluids out
of your body than it is replenishing them. It takes more than 24 hours to recover from dehydrating
to the extent he did, no matter how much you drink. Following Stage 12, Lance consumed a lot of
water and a lot of sports drink in an effort to regain the fluids, electrolytes, and energy he lost
earlier in the day. By this morning, his waking body weight (measured after using the bathroom) was
nearly normal, but he knew he would feel the lingering effects of the ordeal during Stage
13.
While Lance lacked some of his customary punch today, he diligently consumed fluids throughout the
stage and managed to contain his rivals. Finishing seven seconds down on Jan Ullrich and passing
Alexander Vinokorouv in the final 500 meters of the stage was a great performance, all things
considered. Even more encouraging is Lance Armstrong's amazing ability to recover from hard efforts.
Part of what makes him a champion is his ability to put in huge efforts on one stage, and then
recover to be able to do it again the following day.
Lance should be able to fully recover from the past two days and have a strong performance during
Stage 14. His goal is still to find opportunities to attack and gain time on Jan Ullrich before
Tuesday's rest day. Though his legs may have wavered, Lance's will and character never do, and with
a strong team around him, he knows what he has to do to keep his yellow jersey.