Day 14: Exciting Tour!

Spoiler alert - don't read if you watch the Tour and haven't seen today's (Stage 18) results.











Just finished watching today's stage, and I am so excited - Julian Alaphilippe has hung on to the yellow jersey!  Only two stages left where he could lose it.  (And the received wisdom is that he probably will.  I may have mentioned my love of the underdog, however, so I remain undeterred in my optimism.)  He lost contact with the second place rider (Geraint Thomas - last year's winner) on the final climb, but it wasn't a mountain-top finish.  And man, can Alaphilippe descend.  That man dropped like an elevator.  I almost couldn't look - it was terrifying.  (I was literally clutching my hair at one point.)  But he caught up with Thomas, who, in fact, has falled into third place behind his teammate Egan Bernal. 

OK, maybe this isn't your cup of tea.  Sorry.  But I am just so in awe of what it takes to ride 2200 miles in three weeks.  And more than that, to track everything that's going on from day to day.  What kind of stage is this? Whom does it suit?  What's your job on this particular stage? Whom do you have to watch out for?  Which of your team's goals is the priority for this particular day?  (Remember, there are about seven different competitions to keep track of: yellow jersey - that's the overall winner - green jersey, white jersey, polka dot jersey, stage win, most aggressive rider for the day, best overall team.)  All of those calculations change from day to day, over 21 stages (many of which are well over 100 miles).  It's insanity.  It's so clear that, much more than a physical feat, this is a mental game.  What it takes to get up each day and race - each day's race is already a world class event by itself - day after day.  I can't imagine it.

Which means I probably shouldn't be already griping in my head about getting up to swim tomorrow....