Cracked

I hated bikes yesterday. Actually I hated everything and anything.

Yesterday was the one-day Giro della Romagna and god I was tired. I knew I was gonna struggle from the start so I put everything I had into covering breaks, and it turned out to be a really aggressive day. We did over 50km in the first hour, with constant attacks going and coming back the whole time. Finally a big move went and it looked like everyone was satisfied. The bunch paused for a min to pee and as I got back moving after the brief break I noticed a rather loud creaking coming from the headset somewhere. Looking down, I spotted a huge crack that had formed in the stem right where it bolts onto the steerer tube. Not safe. I rode up to the car and showed Antonio, our mechanic, and he set me up with a bike change right away. Unfortunately some team in the group wasn't comfortable with the break and started chasing again, so it took Antonio leaning out the car with his hand on my back pushing me along at 50mph. I was just about drooling by the time I caught back on and no more than 15 min later all but 2 from the break were caught and the attacking commenced again. I dragged myself back up to the front to do my job. I thought there's no way I'm going to make it over the climbs today anyway so I might as well do as much as I can now. Needless to say, I was cooked when we reached the climbs 110km in. I made it over the first two smaller ones but pulled the plug as soon as we hit the slopes of the third and longest one. I gave Ty a sweet sling up into the group as my parachute opened.

Still 60km to go and I was in a group of 8 off the back with a couple more climbs to go. I grabbed three bottles from the car as they tried to speed by me. Those next two hours grew more and more miserable. We crawled along tediously slow. Even with 3 bottles I ran out of water. I ran out of food. On every little hill I seriously doubted my ability to make it over. My back was trashed from the first two hours of constant accelerations. Every part of my body was shot, it all hurt. And by the end my taint was bleeding from the different seat and position on that spare bike. Seriously, I have scabs down there today... I was torn up.

After 5hr 21min, I arrived at the bus (35min down on the winner). There was no food other than soda. We showered and got straight in the car to go to the airport hotel (3.5 hrs away) where we are now. We finally did stop at an AutoGrill when we were nearly here but I was far too cracked already. That meal barely put a dent in my hunger and I was mad at the world (obviously for no reason, but I was so hungry and tired that it didn't care about being rational).

I've raced around 550miles in the last 5 days. I'm better now. My outlook on life isn't nearly as dismal today as it was yesterday.