The amazing disappearance of all the photos

Today I did over five hours, so this post is going to be succinct as I am relatively dehydrated and reasonably rouged. When I set off in the morning it was overcast and grey; two hours later it was 25 degrees and anything but, so I proceeded to sweat litres (in my winter tights) and get sun-burnt on my arms after ditching (literally) my longsleeve top. Anyway, it was a good ride in the end.

Last Sunday I did my first race back after my little heel injury hiccup and it was awesome to be back cruising in the bunch. Long story short I was third, having had my hands a little tied with my teammate up the road in a two-up breakaway. Unfortunately he was beaten in the sprint: cue the most unhappy looking podium goers in a while...

The reason for the title today is that we were up on stage for about fifteen minutes posing for photos in various sponsorship pleasing ways, which is a long time even for the French! And yet, I've only located two photos. C'est incroyable! I've got a few smaller races this weekend but I'm training through them as there's an Elite National stage race the weekend after, which is much more important. Not much to report other than that, and the fact that I went in the sea yesterday and by god it was cold!

A week of tanning, I mean training

This last week has been a jam-packed one for my social life! Last night Sam and I went next door to the landlady's place for cidre (so French darling) and some canapes; yes I tried foie gras, no I didn't really like it! It was quite a pleasant evening despite our mutual dread during the preceding days, mostly centered around the fact that we hadn't paid the rent on time. She was very nice about it though and so we both, obligingly, did our best to demolish the spread. The lemon macarons were off the chart amazing.

In other news, I'm back training properly and the weather has been very good to us over here in the last week. I've managed to get some semblance of a tan again in the past few days whilst clocking up the kilometres which is always a big bonus. I've been doing a few more hours this week, partly to regain some fitness after my five days off the bike and partly to build up for a target I'm looking forward to: the National Road Race (capitals required, as it's a beast). Having been crap at this event for the past few years I'd quite like to do well this time around, so I'm working on the endurance for that purpose.

Weather: good. Beaches: great.

This weekend I thought I was racing an Elite National today (as it says on the calendar) although it seems that due to unforeseen (by me) circumstances I was not. I will be racing tomorrow though which I'm really excited about as I haven't pinned a number on in two weeks now, which when you're a full time cyclist feels like an age! Just to finish off by feeding my ego a little here's an article on Velo Veritas about me. All the best everyone.