Everything can change in a couple of days

TOUR DIARY:The weekend showed that the Tour is a real rollercoaster and you have to stick it out when things get tough

Saturday

This diary was all about showing the ups and downs of the Tour and that’s really been the case. I’ve been writing about being sick for a while and unfortunately it felt worse on Saturday’s stage. I felt really bad on the bike and felt like my chest infection is getting worse. I’d no energy at all.

The past couple of days have been hard, but what doesn’t help things is the heavy traffic after the stages, the long transfers and the fact that we didn’t get to the hotel until nearly 8pm on Friday night.

We have to get massage then to help the body recover, so we did not get to eat dinner until 10 o’clock. You don’t get to sleep until 11 or 11.30 then and when you have to get up at 7.30 the next morning, two weeks into a hard race, it’s tough on the body.

The Tour is all about trying to recover as well as possible but that complicates things. Anyway, on Saturday a load of riders sat up with about 35 kilometres to go to conserve energy – I decided to do the same. As I lost time waiting for crashed team-mates at the start of the Tour, I am not up there in the GC anyway so there’s no point in pushing myself when I don’t have to. I’m conserving as much energy as possible and trying to get better.

One thing some people were talking about after the stage was the fact that Mark Cavendish didn’t stay with the guys on the steep hill with 25 kilometres to go, and therefore wasn’t there at the end for the sprint finish. Some are saying he has a lot of work to do before the Olympics, but I’m not sure you can draw that conclusion. We are heading into the third week of this race, and it’s very different to a one-day race.

Sunday

As I said, the Tour is a rollercoaster and that’s how it turned out. You never know how you’ll feel when you wake up and my legs were actually much better yesterday. I’m still coughing my lungs up, but overall I felt a lot better. What I did was try to ride within myself all day, not to increase the volume of air I am consuming so much.

I think getting in the break the other day and riding so hard is what hurt my lungs again; I was making such a big effort that it damaged my body. In retrospect, maybe I should have taken it easier then, but I felt good on the start line and thought I was over things. That’s the way it is; I am a racer, and when I feel good the instinct is to push it.

Anyway, being in the break over those mountains was a really good experience and, if I’d been a little better, maybe I could have stayed there until the final and tried to play for the stage win. So there’s no point in wishing I did things differently now.

I’m feeling a bit better and while we’ve a 160 kilometre stage today which will probably be fast and raced hard over lumpy roads, I’ll try to again take it easy. We’ve got a rest day tomorrow and I’m hoping that if I do things right, I might be going well for the two Pyrenean stages this week.

Yesterday was really strange because of the carpet tacks that were scattered on the road. I took it easy on the climb and was a bit back after the steep part. I suddenly started seeing all these guys on the side of the road holding their wheels in the air, looking for new ones after puncturing. I must have passed about 20 or 30 guys – I’ve never seen anything like it.

I really don’t know why anybody would want to do that, to sabotage the race in that way. The Astana rider Robert Kiserlovski ended up crashing because of that, and went out with a fracture. The race is dangerous enough as it is and for someone to throw tacks on the ground at the top of an 80km per hour downhill is really playing with guys’ lives. It’s not good.

The Spanish rider Luis Leon Sanchez won the stage, salvaging the Tour for his Rabobank team. They had similar misfortune to us – many of their riders crashed and some of their biggest guys had to pull out because of the injury.

I was next to him on the start line and thought to myself that he normally takes a stage win every year, and that it was probably a really good stage for him to try. Sure enough, when I crossed the finish line at the end, there he was on the podium.

I was glad to see that – he is a super nice guy. He injured his wrist in the first week and to take the stage is fantastic for him. It shows how hard cyclists are, and proves you have to stick it out when things are tough.

The Tour is pretty unique – it is one of the very few sporting events that you can get badly injured at the start, then recover in time to be successful in the end. It just shows how long the event is and how people can change in it.

I’m hoping that will be the case for me too. I’m doing my best and who knows what can happen. Everything can change in a couple of days.

Twitter: DanMartin86