There is a theory in sports training that you should ‘train hard to race easy’ – that is to say if you make life hard enough in your training, when race day comes you’ll be breezing along on the tops while the world’s best bike riders drop off your wheel with cries of surrender and supplication.
Part of this theory specifies that you should seek out difficult conditions in training, conditions that replicate the genuine stresses of racing. So you should train at altitude, if you’ll ever have to race up a proper mountain. Or you should train in the heat, or in high humidity.
