Day 3
To do well in a stage race you can’t have a bad day. Today I had a bad day. The climbing starts pretty early on this stage so you need to have a good warm up. It became clear pretty quick that I was not ready. As soon as we started climbing I was hurting, bad. My legs had nothing, I was going backward in a hurry. I was pissed. Twenty minutes in and all my hard work yesterday was for nothing. I got in a small group on the descent and the chase was on. Sort of. By the time we got to the bottom our group had grown to about 20 guys. In theory we should have had no problem getting back in the race. Not this crew. There were about 5 of us willing to work. The other 15 candy asses seemed content to let the race go down the road. This one jack ass kept getting in the rotation and stopping. I asked him what the f@#* he was doing and he says. “I will work when it suits me.” I am dumb founded. I say “the race is down the f’ing road, either start working or go to the back with all the other girls.” Everyone starting laughing and he started working. After about 50 miles of driving it we had the front group down to 30 seconds. They were right there and everyone stops working. WTF? I bet these guys all have half finished houses and unsatisfied girl friends. I ended up 32nd on the day and have dropped to 34th on GC.
Tomorrow is the crit. Hopefully everyone will be saving themselves for Sunday. I am really disappointed about today. I have no explanation for my poor performance. After the first climb I was feeling great, but it was too late. My hopes of a top 20 finish are about as slim as finding a good girlfriend. I still have high hopes for Sunday. It is the type of stage where you can gain or lose huge chunks of time. Maybe I will come out on the long end of that stick.
