As I sit here back in Lucca I think back to the last 2 weeks of craziness in Volta a Portugal. That race is on a different level in so many ways. From heat to the mind blowing speed those guys go up hill.
The Tour was a good one for us I think with Sergio winning one of the hardest stages and holding the yellow jersey for a couple days. It made me proud to get to ride the front of the peloton in defence of the jersey. Reminds me of last year when I was lucky enough to have a team help me defend the yellow jersey in the early stages of the tour.
There are a few challenges in a tour that’s 11 stages long. Food , drinking and trying to recover.
Think it was a little hotter then last year. But hey I love the heat so didn’t kill me too much. The heat did have its toll on the race though. You have to try stay hydrated in such a long tour but when we riding in temps of over 40C for most of the week it’s not easy. So you can imagine how many times you have to go back to the car to get bottles. Just to let you know we went through 1200 bottles in 11 days. Around 100 bottles a day with only 9 riders. That’s a fair few bottles for each guy each day.
The next challenge was eating enough of the right foods to help with the recovery process and also not the same old stuff that after a week you get sick of it. But we were lucky enough to have DR Rob Child with us on tour and he made sure that everyone got what he needed. After every stage walking onto the bus to some yummy dish he had whipped up for us definitely made eating easy after a long, hard and hot day.
The final little challenge and most probably the biggest one was the recovery. To able to wake up day after day and smash your body is not easy but when you got people on tour with you like Rob and the guys that repair us with the massages like Basti, Hagen and Raul, it really does help having the best guys in the business. A couple days after being in the break or riding the front for 150km the legs feel a little messed but my repair man ( Basti ) always seemed to put me back together to try do it again the next day. I guess he just knows how to fix me.
I really enjoyed Portugal again this year but in a different way to last year. No stage wins for me personally but I am really really happy with the way I felt. After all the health issues of the beginning of the year I really hope now that I can concentrate on the final races of the year and make the SA Champ jersey proud. Oh and if you wondering , YES I’d love to go back to Volta a Portugal again. Think it’s starting to become my favourite race of the year , tour wise.
So that’s all from me for now.I have had two nice and easy days of recovery now and I look a head to what is coming. This weekend we head off to Hamburg, Germany for a small 245km race. Think its time to show the WorldTour what Africa’s little team has got again.
Jay Thomson
