Tour of Austria

I'm always going to have 2 contrasting memories of tour of Austria, from being completely gutted and frustrated to being part of something awesome, Jakob Fuglsangs overall win, - he won a stage, the team won the team G.C competition and Tommy Rohregger took the best Austrian jersey and we were all over the race like a rash.

I was coming into the race in the form of the year, fresh from a little break after Cali and with some good racing in the legs this year, I was ready to have a crack at a result on a tour that suited me down to the ground but I must of spilled the salt again or broke a mirror somewhere because my stars didn’t line up and a few days before the race I started coughing, then sweating next minute I was fucked; I trained through it in the lead up and got off the plane in Munich thinking I would be fine. I bluffed through stage one but was coughing like an asthmatic in a chimney. The doctor diagnosed me with bronchitis and I started on the antibiotics. For the next 3 days I sucked. In the hill top finish up an awesomely steep Klitzbhuler horn all I could do was ride close enough to the spectators hoping they would push me. That was probably the low point for sure. I trained my arse off to try turn some heads on that hill and just like that It was wasted.

The next days were a mental battle as much as a physical one but after Jakob took the jersey, I had some purpose back and the bronchitis was clearing. It still took its tax on me and I was pretty ruined most of the time but I did what I could and got better by the day. I was lucky we had such a good combo of guys and staff and our daily gelato trips and the pre race dance routine from Markel on the team bus turned it into a really enjoyable week. Once we had the jersey everyone stepped it up a level or two and although there were some moments we were at panic stations we were generally never under too much pressure.

I'm hoping I get into full swing soon, this year doesn’t feel like its been bad in fact I've had a great time but sometimes it’s a little like all the bad shit that I never had cycling wise has finally found out where I live. since December I’ve had the worst injuries I've ever had, the worst crashes I've ever had, sickness and stitch in full force all pitching in at different races and I guess being sick here just really put me in the rage cage because I thought I was in for a goodie, there’s been a lot of really good things to balance it out so by no means am I disappointed by the year so far but hungry to bring it all together.

As for the stitch, well I took a trip to Barcelona sports center a few weeks ago to do some tests and it showed nothing but we focused on my heart not the stitch so now we know it's not life threating (no shit, it’s the stitch not a heart murmur) I can go to someone with a far more relevant set of tests. Monday morning I’m flying to the Basel Olympic center to spend a week and get to the bottom of this!

gb