September 3rd - Rest Day - La Vuelta

• Salamanca

• Distance: 1.5 hour recovery ride

 

Brent's Update:

Monday was a welcomed rest day after a grueling first “week” here at La Vuelta. They call the block from the start to the rest day the ‘first week,’ but it’s actually nine days! 

So now in my mind, I tell myself that we are already approaching the halfway point. The rest days go by too quickly. After Sunday’s six-hour stage and another hefty transfer, it meant we arrived at our rest day hotel late and were all slow getting moving in the morning.

It was great not to have to zip up my suitcase, but I still had to hustle to make the 11 am training ride. We rolled up to Salamanca and soaked up some ambiance in the Placa Mejor Salamanca and googled some history on the place. I now know it is home to the oldest university in Spain, which is apparently where today’s stage starts.

The afternoon was lunch, a nap, massage, physio check-up and a couple quick catch up phone calls and emails before dinner and then back to bed. These next six stages should take us into some moderated temps, but very demanding terrain with some STEEP climbs towards the end of the week. Fortunately, tomorrow looks the gentlest, so fingers crossed we can “ease” back in.