This was written back during the Tour of the Gila….please accept my apologies for the delay in the post.

Those of you who follow me on twitter might have noticed that I was a little bored last Tuesday.  I decided to make the trip to the Tour of the Gila after all.  Whether this was a wise move or not, only time will tell.  I am deep into a course of antibiotics to get over this stupid little….well I don’t know what to call it….I was run down, I was stressed and hence got a nasty little cold.  Swine is the word of the day.  Anyways, back to the point of twitter….if you don’t follow me, you should, because, well, maybe you should talk to my twitter fans about it – please send in your comments!  I promise to make it worth your while and you won’t feel empty and used the next morning.  Twitter name:  benday78.

Tour of the Gila – Lance-fest Gila Edition as someone called it.  Due to being a “relatively easy stage race at altitude before the Tour of Italy”, Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and Chris Horner, the mighty American trio from the Astana team are here to complete their final preparations.  Levi looks good, really good.  Lance and Horner have been working hard, Lance looks skinnier than I remember.  The way they control a race should be a lesson to a lot of teams here in the US.  Cool, calm and collected…..oh and strong.

Stage 1 – did I mention I didn’t really want to be here?  Ouch!  New shoes, new orthotics, lack of form, sick, antibiotics, bad mental state are listed on my list of excuses, but once the number was on, the boys were together it was game on.  Every race is like a tactical piece of clay.  On the road I enjoy the challenge of watching the race unfold, communicating with the team car and the other riders in order to use our strengths were necessary to achieve the best possible result that we can for the team.  I am the somewhat bossy one.  Henk Vogels in the team car is a great motivator and talks to us with a passion of cycling that he showed during his incredible professional career.

A move went with Grabo and Scotty “my brother is rather tanned” D.  Grabo has found a great vein a form and talking with him about it today, it seems like a little rest was the thing that sharpened his pencil.  A lesson I like to impart on some of my www.daybydaycyclecoaching.com athletes….  The boys arrived at the final nasty mountain top finish with a small lead to main group containing Levi, Lance and Horner.  Levi showed his class and good vein of form and Grabinger was awesome in holding his advantage until just 3 miles to go.  Grabo is a tough lad.  My hat is off to him this week as he has been dealing with issues as well and has manned up and shown some real grit.