The long hot one...and finally back to Lisbon level. At the briefing last night, they told us to make sure we stayed hydrated as it is going to be a long day at the office. We also heard quietly from the organizer that there is a nasty narrow descent at the 20k mark which a lot of people will find very challenging so best be at the front of the group rather than get held up.
Chris & I need no encouragement to hit the front at 18k to avoid the carnage and so get ourselves a nice little gap which we build on throughout the day. I have to keep restraining Chris's impulse to chase everything in front of us. He is a machine!
We get ourselves into a small group of 3 with a Norwegian guy and crank out the kilometres and share the work cycling into the headwind. Although the wind slows us down, it keeps me cool and avoids my own personal China syndrome for this day.
Our Norwegian buddy punctures and we decide to stop and help him fix it as 3 of us working together into the wind is working very well. I guess we only loose 5-6 minutes fixing it but will easily save that in time working together.
The scenery rolls past and to be honest, I don't really remember much of it, blue skies, brown earth, white houses, saddle with an arse on it in front, shovelling food and water in as fast as I can....and repeat.
With about 70k to the finish, we catch the fast group from our starting time. These are the guys who take off every morning at race pace from the gun. Chris has a small dose of red mist and charges off to try and drop them. Lunatic. I convince him to drop back into the group and work together till we are much closer to the finish. Sanity restored, we save our energy for the later stages. If we had tried to drop them, they would only have stayed on our wheels and had a free ride to the end. At least this way, we get more rest and shelter riding in a bigger group.
The group holds together till nearly the end and we suddenly come upon the finish. I have never been gladder to grab a beer, from the little bar near the finish line. Aptly, the beer brand is 'Sagres', which is where the finish line on stage 8 is. An omen?
This is the day we had all worried a little more about. But nine hours and three minutes in the saddle and we have done it. 5 days done out of 8 and we are beginning to think we might well finish.
We went well today and have come in a very creditable 21st position on the stage. This is the point in the race when we will see whether the strategy of saving energy on the early stages pays dividends. Chris is showing no sign of slowing down and seems full of energy.
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