A Day of Rest

After waking up this morning and moving around a little I decided that today would be a rest day for me. While nothing hurts badly I'm approaching a high level of overall fatigue. Since I've been eating and sleeping well I'm taking it to mean I've pushed a little to hard. Crew taught me the danger of pushing into total exhaustion day after day, so I think I'll just try and dodge that bullet this time.

I also took the bike into Landry's to get the 2nd water bottle rack and have them tweak the rear derailer back into line. While I was there I talked with Patrick about tagging along up to the Wompatuck Training Criterium He's planning on heading up so I'm planning on heading into work early tomorrow so I can take off around 4:30pm to join them. I don't think I'll race, but I plan on at least doing some practice laps with them while they warm up just to see what its like. If I feel really comfortable I might join in. My worst fear is that I do join and end up with lots of pictures of bloody body parts and broken bike bits to post tomorrow.

One thing I haven't been talking about is the fact that I quit drinking soda as soon as I started riding again. I've been repeatedly addicted to coca-cola throughout my life. Recently I was drink 40-60oz of it a day. Throw in some morning tea and afternoon chocolate and I'm over 300mg a day. Needless to say I've had some pretty killer headaches over the last week and some but they've finally calmed down. Reading this article on Caffeine reminded me of how glad I am to be free of it. It also made me choke when I think of how much caffeine my Starbucks addicted friends are pulling down a day.

Like most cycling fans I've been watching the Tour de France every day and marveling at what these amazing cyclists are able to do. That said, I know enough about how an normal human beings body works and it just seemed impossible that Alexandre Vinokourov could yo-yo so dramatically between winning a time trial handily, collapsing the next day, and then charge back to lead a break-away to a stage victory the next. Now the time-trial win and the next day collapse I can by. Any huge effort will have consequences, sadly it has now come to light that Alexandre Vinokourov resorted to transfusions to accomplish these feats that we now know are indeed in-human. All Alexandre Vinokourov had to do was finish the tour, and he would have been remembered for a long time as the man who survived the tour despite massive injuries from a crash early on. Instead he'll only be remembered for his disgrace. I'm sure he went through unbelieveable amounts of pain to stay in the race, but it all means nothing after what he's done.
I wonder how long it will be before people watching the tour will stop wondering during every amazing effort if the riding isn't cheating, I know I'll be wondering.

To me winning isn't everything, my favorite rider in the tour is George Hincapie. He's my favorite rider because he's shown himself to be all too human. He's blown himself up time and time again to help his teammates out. Watching him creep over the Col de Peyresourde and the dig deep to lead-out Alberto Contador (and pull along Rasmussen) was awesome. To me that is the most noble part of the Tour de France, the riders that know they are going to lose but give everything they can to help out their teammates. When I see a lead-out man weaving back and forth like a drunk paper boy after helping out his team leader I'm proud of that man. For that matter the Rabobank squad has been very impressive also in their defense of the yellow jersey. They've done a ton of work to protect Rasmussen, and they've dropped like flies long before the finish because of it. That's what I like about the tour giving it all for a common goal that is beyond yourself.

The Food Log
Glasses of Water = 7
Breakfast - A cup of Tea and 2 Slices of Toast
Lunch - 1/2 a lg pepperoni pizza
After Lunch Snacks - 1 cup of Ramen, 2 bags of M&Ms (one peanut one regular)
Dinner - Rice, Squash, 2 Sausages, and a Corn on the Cob and a glass of Chocolate Milk
After Dinner Snack - A bowl of cherries