After finishing up the Volta ao Algarve with a fairly strong ride in the final time trail I am ready for what lies ahead. Spring has made its first appearance here in Girona, and my pale skin saw the sun for the first time this week. There is nothing quite like those first few warm days on the bike after a long a miserable winter. Those are the days when the hardest part is forcing yourself to turn your bike back towards home.

I feel my fitness is heading in the right direction now. After a rough start to the racing season, with two crashes, too many flat tires to count and the horrendous weather, I can say that the bad luck is behind me. Now I can look forward to performing well in Paris-Nice. I will spend this week in Girona working on some longer distances as there are many stages over 200 kilometers in Paris-Nice, and then next week I will head up to Nice with Courtney to meet up with some family and recon the last couple of stages. I can’t wait to see how it all goes. Much of my time lately has been spent daydreaming about wearing the white jersey after the prologue!

Life has been great here in Girona.  Sunny skies and a quite, tourist-free, town have made the time here very enjoyable.  Courtney arrived this past weekend, and we have had a lot of fun getting to know each other again after our very busy month apart.  We have both quickly adopted our favorite lifestyle, that of the Spanish.  I spend each morning out on the bike.  Usually meeting Michael Barry at the local bar/restaurant here, Boira, then after a quick and extremely tasty zumo de naranja (orange juice) it’s off into the hills.  Each training session has gone better than the last, so I am very happy and confident about where I am beginning the season!

Once my day’s work is complete I spend the afternoon with Courtney.  We have a nice lunch, and then I usually take a small siesta while she knocks out some more of her work and after that we go for a stroll around town to gather food to cook for the night.  Does life get any better than that?

We have a lot to look forward to in the near future.  My first race, Challenge Mallorca, is just around the corner.  I am eager to get to the start line and get some good racing in my legs.  I’ll only be doing the final three stages of the five-day race.  There is no need for me to be parading around the flat streets of Palma for the first two days! The final, very mountainous, three stages are much more suited to my style.  I have never raced in Mallorca before, but with many training camps there in the past I will have a good feel for the roads.  This race should provide the perfect start to the season.  Before all of that fun begins, Courtney and I will probably sneak down to Barcelona for the day.  It is so close and easy to reach by train, so we really are making sure we take advantage of that while we can.

HTC-Columbia’s Mallorca training camp has finally come to a close.  It’s been a great one, but I am very much looking forward to getting settled in my Spanish home for the year, Girona.  Upon arriving in Mallorca the team and staff feared the weather would get the best of us and our training camp wouldn’t include much training at all.  However, the weather just seemed to get better each day.  By the end of the twelve-day camp we had almost sixty hours out on the bikes, plus countless more hours in the gym!  That’s a huge workload, and I am feeling pretty tired at the moment.  But I know I will just get better and better over the next few days and I am confident I have a great base to begin the season with.

The next two weeks will be spent fine-tuning my form in order to be ready for my first race of the year, Challenge Mallorca.  With so many long rides in my legs after this camp, I won’t need to worry about adding volume.  I will just be focused on shorter more intense days, trying to help the body remember what it is like to be racing.

Courtney and I will also be rediscovering the Catalunya region of Spain.  We have both really missed the culture and atmosphere of Europe, and are excited to be back.  It will be great to spend some time together and revisit our favorite spots and dine at some of our favorite restaurants.  There are so many great things to look forward to at the moment.

Well, my winter break here in Greenville has come to an end.  I’ve spent the past couple of days figuring out how to pack up my whole life into one suitcase.  I’ll spend the next six-months or so over in Europe, my longest block yet, and I’ll have to be prepared for everything.  Training camp in Mallorca, Spain, is my first stop.  Two weeks of hard training, on and off the bike, and hopefully a little better weather will help me get ready for the racing season.  Then, it’s time to get settled in Girona, my home for the year.

I am looking forward to getting the year going and figuring out where my fitness is in the first few races.  I feel the winter has treated me well, but it’s hard to say when you’re not racing and don’t have anything to compare with.  I am also really excited to get back to life in Girona.  The life and culture there is about as good as it can get.  Morning coffees overlooking the river at our place, and an evening glass of wine in one of the town squares with Courtney are some of the best parts of life.  It will also be nice to escape the bitter cold that has settled in Greenville, and have some fresh roads to train on.

My final stay in Girona for this year has had its ups and downs to say the least.  It took a little longer to expect to recover from the World Championships.  I would basically pass out around 10PM and I would stay that way for a solid ten hours each night.  I guess my body was just not used to seven hours of racing on the bike.

I did start to come around after four or five days of rest, so I started to get in some good days on the bike.  As soon as I was feeling like my old self, I headed towards the hills and ended up on what was one of my favorite loops.  A really nice climb followed by a gravel descent towards a massive reservoir and up another mountain.  Sounds awesome, right?

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The topic of conversation the past week here in Girona has been the heat. It seems like everything is revolving around it at the moment.

Today on the ride I knew it was going to be another brutal day when I was reaching for my water bottle before I was even out of town at nine in the morning. At this point in the day the sky is a clear blue and you can even make out the Pyrenees in the distance. As the day progresses it is as if the sun is so strong that the blue burns off and by late afternoon the sky is a bright white. Something that you wouldn’t dare look directly into.  The mountains become a blur, even the trees and buildings lose their lines. Its hard to make out much of anything other than the sweat pouring down your face.

It is day just like today that you fully understand why siestas were created so many years ago. It simply is impossible to work in the afternoons.  As a cyclist you just have to survive these few hot weeks each year. We ride early, almost two hours before our normal start times the rest of the year. Some even chose to head out before the sun is up, with lights attached to their bars. I guess I just enjoy sleep too much for that.

Our rides become very predictable, with our routes being planned around water stops. Venturing out to a new road or a new climb just doesn’t happen this time in the year.

Off the bike is still all about survival. Drinking cold water to restore the body’s supply and putting off all trips out of the house until the latest moment in the day when the heat is subsiding.   Fortunately for us here in Girona the heat won’t last forever and like the rest of life it seems to pass very quickly.

The late finish and the after party for the Tour of Poland meant that we would be spending another night there and traveling back on Sunday. When it’s possible, we all like to get home as soon as possible, so that usually means a late flight home and a really long night after racing all day. That wasn’t an option for most of us here, it is not so easy to get in and out of Krakow apparently.

If you put a couple hundred bike racers and staff together, add some alcohol and no place to go you will have one crazy night. I was one of the few that managed some sleep that night, a solid two hours. When the alarm sounded at 5:00AM I was not in the best mood, but it was time to get up and head back to Girona.

After two flights, a long layover and a good taxi ride I was back in my place in Girona and ready for some down time. After doing longer stage races there is always a few days of taking it easy to get the body recovered. I took the free time to catch up with a few friends in town. I had a nice cookout at Timmy Duggan’s with a few other of the Garmin guys one night, drank some wine with Will Frischkorn and Mike Friedman on another night and did a lot of sleeping. Then after a few days of relaxing there is the annoying task of waking the body up and getting the blood flowing. It is never easy to get going again. It usually takes quite a bit of suffering for a few days before you feel like you belong on a bike. It is made a little easier if you have some friends to join you in the process. Michael Barry and David Millar were in the same boat this week, so we pushed each other on a few rides in hopes of finding some form. It is also getting fairly late in the season, so it helps to have some company out of the long and hot roads of Spain. I have a few more days to get things in order, then it is off to Ireland for the Tour of Ireland.

Well, I am once again back in Girona, Spain. Fresh off of a very nice five week break in the US. I packed in so many great times there, but like the rest of life it went by way too fast. This stay in Europe will be different than any of the others this year as my wife, Courtney, will not be joining me. Leaving loved ones behind is the hardest part of the sport that I know of, but that makes me even more motivated to have a successful fall here.

I have had a couple of days now to adjust to the time change and recover from the travel. Most of my time as been spent restocking the house with food and water. This means walking the sixty stairs up to our apartment many times. The rest of my time has been split catching up with friends here in Girona, either on the bike or have a drink in town. There is such a good group of guys here and that makes a lot easier here alone.

I am off to the Tour of Poland tomorrow. It has been six weeks since my last race, the Dauphine, so I have no idea what the form is going to be like. I also have never been to Poland and have no idea of what the country will be like. Right now I am seeing grey, concrete, and very few windows. It should be an experience nonetheless.