Big, Big Waves

Hey, Hey, sorry for the long delay Mom, and Kristin....hehe I HOPE like hell there are more of you out there that read this!! So internet was more of a pain in the ass at the hotel in Portugal, so I waited to get back to you guys. After the first stage I caught what me and my teammates call, "the -itis" and your guess is as good as mine as to what it was. I woke up the morning of the second stage naseous and unable to eat enough. The situation didn't improve on the way to the stage but I was able to start and sure enough at 40k/hour uphill I actually felt better! Of course, I still couldn't keep anything down so I only lasted about 80k, got dropped on the long cat. 2 climb in the middle of the race. Funny, because when I was back at home before this trip my standard response to the, "how's the racing over there?" question came in the form of, "Well, I haven't dropped out of a race yet!" Hehe, this is an ode to Murphy's Law. Dammit.

So a day off, spent on the beach on the hottest day of the week.....gorgeous women, I mean, waves, yeah, waves....topless waves......so hot.....whoa, sorry, got off track there.

I chose to ride in the team car for the last day, the circuit race, and probably the toughest circuit in the world, seriously, about an 18k loop and two large, 3-5k climbs, and we're not talking 6% grade here, more like 10. It was nice to get the other perspective and listen to Lucas on the radio laugh out loud at how the breakaway was rotating like it was a team time trial on the climb....hehe, like they were taking turns in the wind. That is funny. The boys survived and we all agreed that Tour of Portugal in a few weeks will be more of the same, only harder, and longer....Yes, we hope to just make it to the second week in THAT race.

Back home in Girona where it is 30 degrees...good grief, makes for good weight loss. We are doing a group ride out to our director's house tomorrow for some BBQ and a dip in his pool, should be real nice. Then on to a few more days of hard training, then on to the one day Spanish races for this campaign. I had a good day of training, I am on a tweaked program now because of lost time during Agostino, but after getting a feel for the fitness today I think all will be well. Thanks again y'all, thanks for reading, thanks for wasting some time, hope it was entertaining....later