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Merry Christmas, y’all.

When I told family members that “I’m not doing Christmas this year”, there was a little dismay among them. How could anyone miss Christmas? And now that we’ve had breakfast this morning and are now in the buses (I’m writing while in the bus), we just realized what day it is. We don’t have the same environment of context that exist in the US.

Much has happened since I last wrote. We raced 2 stages and are on our way to the third. The first day’s course was a brute and, as you already know, we didn’t fare well. Alberto was in the lead group, which was good, but I missed out on that selection and 2 of our guys were eliminated. This was very bad. Our sponsors were unhappy and there was the inevitable criticism on this site (justly delivered). My mistake was that I used too much energy going with the early attacks that when the real move went up the road, I didn’t have the legs to respond. It was a dopey mistake (and I’m especially annoyed with myself because I’ll have few opportunities in the coming stages, since they’re flat). Wilson hung on for a long time and only got dropped in the final lap (of 7). He didn’t lose very much time, but since the return from the circuit was along a closed highway, the didn’t allow any riders behind the group to proceed. So they closed the gate on him. After the stage, our morale was low– and we were dead tired.

But stage 2 was better. Pollo was assisting Katie (his wife) as soigneur and we were all in good spirits again. In the race, Amaurys scored one of the point sprints, but decided to save it for the finish. In the end, he got 15th, but we’ll keep trying. (I’ve been trying to convince the guys to go for the sprint jersey, since it’s another way to get onto the podium, but they’re not going for it. But it would be different if we still had Pollo and Wilson– this is their terrain. However, I’ve been thinking all morning about going for it myself. Those of you who have raced against me are probably having a belly laugh right now– I’m no sprinter. But I want that jersey. We’ll see what happens.) Regarding the speed of the racing, it’s pretty quick, but manageable. However, when the hammer is dropped, we go to another level.

Another thing– I wasn’t sure what kind of fitness I would have for this thing. I’ve never raced at this time of year, and my last race was long ago (we did a small race over Thanksgiving, and I got dropped!). I also got a late start with my training, so I expected to be the weak link on the team. But I kept up with my training schedule, and spent a week in California training long hours there. Encouragingly, I seem to be going well now and I expect to get better as the days go on.

Ho, ho, ho.

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Katie’s blog