Burgos stage 3

Quiet day here in burgos today. It was one of those days where the 175km seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Infact it was not until we crossed the line that I finally got a chance to see just how much ground and climbing we had done, 2000m of elevation gain to be precise in 4hrs 10min so was a pretty quick one on such terrain. Hopfully this is a good sign that it seemed to breeze by as certainly when you are counting down the km's the days can be very long! One of the big positives from racing the tour of poland and doing so many long hard days is that anything less than 200km seems like a stroll for the moment! I hope this feeling continues for the entire 3 weeks of the vuelta!!

So todays plan was stick to the same plan. Set up ratto as best as possible for the demanding uphill bunch sprint. The sprint would again be defined by a left hand turn onto a narrow rd 2km from the finish and everybody knew if you were not there in the first wheels you were gone. Basso continued to demonstrate his vuelta legs are on the up by jumping into a selective move in the final 10km's. It would be swept up inside 5km's to go but was great to see he is getting jumpy ahead of his big season objective. From there my attention turned to getting ratto to the front for the all important left hand turn and with 3km to go a drag him up the front and dropped him about 5th wheel. From there he was on his own as I can bombarded by kamikazi's from behind want to risk life and limb to take the corner first but I knew from where ratto was he would get a good result. Sure enough he would cross the 3rd so another great showing and again proving his consistency whenever he pins on a number.

For me I am finally getting the race rhythm in my legs and enjoying the feeling of zipping over the rises that in poland seemed like mountains! Another fast flat day tomorrow to keep topping up this energy system!

Power data

time: 4hrs 15min

Speed: 41.5kmph av

Av power: 257watts

5min peak power: 480watts

Max power: 1200watts

Average heart rate: 134bpm  

Kcal: 4000

CJW

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