Feeling much better as we prepare for the final push

DANIEL MARTIN TOUR DIARY:SO, WITH yesterday’s rest day behind us, we are moving into the final phase of the Tour. There’s just five stages left, with Pyrenean mountain stages today and tomorrow, and I’m feeling much better than I was. I got out on the bike yesterday to keep loose and did some pretty hard efforts to keep the heart rate up; if you do too little on the rest day, it means you are very sluggish when racing starts again.

Anyway, I felt really good after Monday’s stage. I think people are starting to realise how sick I was, now that I am starting to look and sound healthier again. That is pretty exciting going into the next stages.

Before I talk about that, I wanted to give people an idea of what a typical day is like on the Tour. The race has been pretty consistent in terms of the routine we have; most stages start at 12 o’clock, although some are at 11, and some at one. But it’s the same routine anyway; you wake up around 8.30, 8.45, pack your bags, give your suitcase to the soigneurs to put on the truck to go to the finish, then get breakfast.

I’ve written in the past about the food we eat during the Tour so I won’t go into that again. Suffice to say that you have to get as much energy in as possible – you spend three and a half weeks on this race eating until you feel sick, then eating some more. It is pretty unpleasant at times, and really takes away the pleasure of eating.

When these big races finish, I normally don’t eat . . . I cut right back for a while as I get so tired of it!

After breakfast, you are in the bus by 9.30 or so, and have an hour or hour-and-a-half journey to the start. We’ll have a pre-race drink with some protein and fats during that journey, then when you get there you need to go to sign on – a big list with the riders’ numbers on it, which you sign your name next to, then back to the bus.

Usually there are one or two journalists there who want to talk to you. That’s what makes the Tour different to every other race. Pretty much every day, each rider on the team needs to do an interview before the start.

They call us to the start line, and we roll out of the town and do 10 to 15 kilometres at a neutralised speed. Everyone knows the Tour is very long, but add that extra bit in over the course of three weeks and it works out at an additional 150 to 200 kilometres extra riding that you don’t see in the results.