Long day

Ride time: 6.5 hours
Distance: 165km
Named Climbs: 10 (6 cobbled, 4 paved + other unnamed)
One pair of tired legs.
Finally went out and did the the White 165km route. Wanted to do this before I left. Follows a bunch of the Tour of Flanders route including such climbs as: the Kluisberg, Kopenberg, Patterberg... Tough climbs. Nice thing about long days is that the weather changes, looked like rain and overcast when I left, got home in sunshine. Needless to say, a good day in the office. Spent most of the day riding at a nice easy pace, pushing only on the climbs. Because of the steepness and cobbled-ness, there is no way to climb these things easily. Fun to attack these climbs as you pass the names of the cobbled greats written on the roads. Needless to say, I slept like a baby last night and feel nice and refreshed this morning. No pictures unfortunately, I'll have to ride it again before I leave - maybe leave something behind to make room for the camera. Today will be another pre-race day. Hour to hour and a half easy with some leg openers to get my head and legs in the zone for an awesome race tomorrow. Racing in Bekegem tomorrow with a nice 3pm start time. These are a good start time, enough time to relax and spin the legs in morning if needed, time to ride to and from the race usually, and you can eat lunch at a normal time while still allowing 3 hours for digestion. That is one of Euro rules courtesy of Dr. Dag (Discovery team head doctor, sorry soon to be former!), no eating within 3 hours of the start of a race. Your body will not have time to digest and make use of it before the start. Makes sense to me, and we all live by the rule. Generally, for a 3pm start, I will eat breakfast at the normal time, have some fruit for a snack at midmorning, and then a nice bowl of pasta with olive oil just before noon. Then its rest and prepare race stuff until we leave. Final check of the bike, fill bottles, pack my bag, and prepare any food needed. For now, time to have that mid-morning fruit snack and then put my feet up for a bit. Maybe chillax in the sun for a while... Ciao