Vuelta Tarragona

Got back last night from the Vuelta Tarragona in Spain. Very hard 5 day stage race with a bunch of ridiculously good spaniards, two strong french teams and some crazy russians. It was a 2.12 which means the field was made up of continental teams and elite amateur teams (I think some people have the misconception that most races we do here are u23-in reality the majority of them are not, so we're racing older riders. This means lots of ex-pros and ridiculous fast 30 year olds).

Anyway, the race was up and down for me. The first stage I had no legs from travel, that didn't go so hot.

Second day I made it over the climbs in the front group behind the winning breakaway. We were agressive in the finale but no dice, rolled in around 40th after I botched the group sprint.

Third day was pretty good. Again, small breakaway off the front. The last climb was very difficult, I had a wheel change right before it so I'd just chased back on. I had good legs this day and made it over the climb with the leaders, then did a decent group spring for around 20th.

4th day was again solid. The race blew to pieces on the first Cat 1 climb. I hung with the leaders for awhile but blew up about a minute before they slowed waay down...shit. Made it back on on the descent without to much trouble though. There was a cat 3 climb that wasn't so bad, then some death rollers and sketchy descents. On the final cat 2 climb I was dropped by the lead group of about 25 riders. I made a 2nd group of about 8 or 10 that never made contact but stayed ahead of the rest of the riders behind.

5th day was awful, I picked up food poisoning or some sort of virus or something. Rocking out in the groupetto has never been so painful. That made the van ride home pretty miserable, fifteen hours across France while nauseous and achy the whole time.

Now I'm back in Izegem, ready to rest up and get healthy, then have some more good racing.