Our mood before the start was very
good. It was the last road stage, the weather was nice, John had a good lead in
the points competition, and Warren was 8th on GC.
The problem with mind trickery,
such as convincing yourself that you’ve made it to the end, is that eventually
you are faced with 185km of racing before it becomes true.
The stage started with 20km of
descending, with some short little kickers thrown in. The descents were narrow
and technical, and bumpy. I was mid-pack when I threw my chain coming out of
the corner. I had a 32t cassette today, which requires a long-cage derailleur,
which can be quite bouncy in the smaller cogs. All that is to say that, when I
was in the 11t through the corner and hit a bump just right, off it went. I
tried for a while to gently get the chain back on, but it just wouldn’t go, so
I had to stop and put it on by hand.
I chased back through the caravan
(but didn’t have the presence of mind to turn the camera on) on the tricky
descent. When I got back, I saw that the field had split into multiple groups,
and Warren was in the last one with me. So I worked my way up to the front and
started chasing with Tobias and Nikias.
We got Warren back to the main field
just in time for it to split again. This time, at least, he was ahead of it. I
wasn’t so lucky, though, and my group didn’t regain the main field until the bottom
of an uncategorized climb of 10km at 5%. I had spent the whole race chasing,
and the attacks were still going.
When I ended up in the cars just
35km in the race on such a hard stage, I started to freak out. I was panicking
that I would end up by myself all day and miss time cut. I thought about the
consolation that everyone would give me about all the success that the team has
had and the part I played in it, and that just sent me further into the dark
places of my mind. I thought about how I wanted to finish the Vuelta for my dad
and everybody who’s helped me get this far, and the fear of failing sent me
further into the spiral. I knew that the break would go eventually and the
field would take it easy and I could make it back, but rationality in such a
situation on stage 20 is hard to come by. Thankfully my directors were there to
calm me down. It also helped that there were 20 other guys in the cars
suffering just as badly.
Sure enough, that’s exactly what
happened, and I enjoyed the hour of relaxed pace to recover and eat. I learned
that I didn’t have it so bad, as Warren was really suffering from mounting knee
pain—a lingering side effect of his crashes. My mood was really boosted when
Larry Warbasse said that my legs, in his opinion, show the most improvement in
muscle definition out of the whole Vuelta peloton. That meant that I have any
muscle definition at all, which sent me over the moon.
Thankfully the pace over the next
two climbs was hard, but manageable. My legs were tired but I was feeling
better, and every kilometer spent with the main field meant that the risk of
missing time cut was further reduced.
My mental trick today was as follows:
80km to go, that’s just 50 miles! Look at that, 30 fewer already just by
converting the units! With my SRM display showing the kilometers ticking by,
but thinking of remaining distance in miles, my end-of-the-grand-tour mind had
a firm grasp on any straws it could reach. Just get me to the finish!
I managed to reach the bottom of
the penultimate climb with the field and happily sang ‘grupetto’ as the fast
dudes took off. Time-cut estimates were about 40-45 minutes, so when we reached
the top of the climb just 10 minutes behind, things were looking good.
The last climb was brutal for
about 5 kilometers in the middle, but we reached the top with 10 minutes to
spare. I spent half of the final climb swatting off spectators who forgot the
number one rule of spectating: don’t touch the bike racers. Guys are welcome to
ask for a push if they want (although they could be penalized for it), but I
want to reach the finish line under my own power. So keep your hands off!
Warren not only battled his
demons, he beat them into submission to finish 6th on the stage. I’m
so impressed with his Vuelta so far!
Now, it doesn’t require any mind
tricks: there is only one stage left. It’s a short and technical TT, and it’s
what I’ve had my sights set on for 3 weeks now . The chance of rain should keep
it interesting.
20 down, ONETOGOONETOGOONETOGO!
(You’re supposed to read that in Dave Towle’s fanatical end-of-crit voice.)
Also, seeing as the time trial isn’t
until tomorrow evening and will be immediately followed by post-race
festivities and travel, it may be a day or so before I post again. Just be
forewarned!
