Well, the first day of La Vuelta is underway. We woke up at 8:30 so we could down a café and croissant before leaving to train on our time trial bikes at 9:00. We rode for just over an hour, enough time to see double-check our bike’s position as well as the group’s pulling rotation. For a minute we were really flying along and I just didn’t get a good feeling from it. What were those strange muscle aches? They certainly were not normal. I started to worry and think about what it might be. Was I bloated? Did I eat to much yesterday? Did we not train enough these last few days? Is it my position on the bike? I didn’t know why it was, but I did not feel right on the bike. If I feel like this later this afternoon I won’t ride well in the team time trial at all.

On the ride back to the hotel we were riding easy and chatting. For some reason, I was not the only one with sore legs today. That made everyone feel better, including myself. We all took the role of the comforter, telling our teammates that they should not worry and it must be because of this, or because of that. It didn’t matter what we said, or what we were told, we all just wanted to know that it wasn’t our fault.

We had an early lunch at noon with a big plate of pasta and then an omelette. At one o’clock we left the hotel for the stage start. We had our final team meeting on the bus on the way over. We each warmed, did what we needed to do to warm-up and prepare ourselves for the TTT - preparing ourselves to suffer.

It was time - the moment of suffering had arrived and we were on the ramp ready to go. Two seconds, one second and PAMM!! The Vuelta had begun for us. Just 27 kilometers lay ahead of us and putting this day behind us.

I am sure that most of you cannot even imagine what it is like during a TTT. Right now, now that it is over, I can look back and laugh with Iñigo and tell stories, but up until the very end you feel like you're just going to explode into millions of pieces. Today was short but not so sweet. It was a tough day for many.

Tomorrow will be the first test for us all. After today there is not much to see amongst the results - tomorrow the real Vuelta begins, tomorrow it will be each rider’s legs against another’s. Tomorrow will most likely bring a lot of excitement, which is good since it makes for better stories. Days like today are fairly mundane for everyone - bring on the wind!

Bingen Fernández
Cofidis
Yellow Jersey Tours