Another tour down...

Well...another Giro finished...that makes my 4th so far. This one was the best I have done all things considered, good weather, good food, good organisation, some beautiful towns for race starts and finishes and a nice short stage to wrap it all up!

We finished the last day after 71km of racing on the top of a 9km climb next to a church called the Madonna della Ghissalo (I think!), a very interesting day with all things considered as Edita Puchinskaite took the stage and the overall with a well timed and forceful attack with 2km to go of the 900km Giro d'Italia. What a way to end in the pink! On the Australian front, everyone finished in good form...poor Spratty was singing deliriously to herself on the start line and poor Jen came off to make it the 3rd crash of the tour but it was a good tour for the Aussies. After struggling with the speed a little early on, I have started to get some speed back (that is speed relative for myself...I'm not the speediest thing getting around!). I finished the tour feeling tired but not completely thrashed which was the aim. A few days of recovery and I will be firing (fingers crossed!).

At the finish line I said good-bye to the Aussies and joined the lil sister in the Nurnberg car heading north to Germany. I thought that I would minimise my travel time so rather than travelling back to Holland I have come up Germany to spend time with friends....one day too late for the World Cup and party but still good to be here. We drove 4hrs to Freiburg and stopped to have dinner and watch the Italians play the French...more people seemed to be barracking for the Frenchies but with some good friends in Italy I was silently hoping the Iti's would get up. What a game! I am glad we got to watch, and I am a big fan of watching a penalty shoot-out...I just can't imagine how the Frenchie that missed the shot would be feeling right now!

So for me a week of recovery on the cards, some rest in the next few days and then getting ready for a really tough 6 days of racing next week back with my AA Drink Team...