Giro finito!

Well, it's all over....all 9 days of fun fast paced pain! Yesterday's last stage was a little crazy at the start, which became clearer as to why after the race was over....because everyone knew that this would be the last time photos with favorite teams or racers could be taken, team samples or goodies given out and good-byes's and thank yous could be expressed. Of course we didn't realize that, we were just trying to do the regular things one does before a race starts....you know, where can we find the bathrooms,



load our race bottles and gels, get radioed, team pre-race briefing, get shammied up, team sign in, etc.

But there was all this commotion for yesterday's stage.....it was difficult to get those things done as all teams were being approached contstantly up until race time.



There was a sad trumpet song played at the start in memory of the German rider that died on her way to the Giro from the Fenix team. So that was kind of sobering, and one of the Fenix riders, Svetlana Bubnenkova won the stage which was fitting.

The stage: ok, lets talk about it .............veddy hilly, veddy, veddy fast leading up to the climbs. I was suffering. My legs were having none of it. I was finally cooked and could give no more. I was just going to finish this thing and be done. So I finished at the back of the bus with others who decided to take that bus trip also, while my teammates fared better in groups ahead of me. Sarah and Tina were in the group ahead of me and Andrea the one ahead of them. Ali was in the 3rd group on the road behind the 2 breakaway groups.

After the race, the teams were all just packing their busses and team cars up and departing to various different places....so thats why there was all the commotion and excitement before the stage. We headed back to Lucca, and did a quick grocery shop run and crashed.

Today, we woke up leisurely and it was heaven to not be on a schedule and have to rush coffee or breakfast or general wake up. Its hard not to feel lazy, but we are just broken. A few of us headed into Lucca city because every 3rd Sunday there is a market. So off we




went, feeling like we should try to check it out. It was very cool and the most remarkable thing was that nobody was pushing anything on us....amazing! I've never been anywhere that sold stuff where the salespeople or vendors weren't trying to reel you in or do the salespitch thing. They just would answer your questions when you needed them to and go back to the book they were reading or conversation they were having.













We would all go through high's and lows or waves of fatigue. Cafe's come in handy for that, you get to sit and eat or drink something and people watch. Andrea told me that Lucca gets missed on the tourist map which is wonderful. Between Pisa and Florence, it gets sort of overlooked which is great as we have gotten the real deal experience, not some tourist version.

Lucca has some not bad acts coming to play.....Ricky Martin is on tonight I believe, but there is Elton John, Joss Stone, Nora Jones, Dionne Warwick (thought she was dead), some others.....

Tomorrow we are trying to be tourists though. We only have one day before heading back to various places in the US so we are going to bed now (like 8pm...I know, exciting party-goers we are) and taking a train ride to cinque-terre which is a sea-side town with fantastic views. We may be tired but we are trying not to be the racers that go to race in fantatstic places, actually have a day or 2 afterwards and don't make an effort to see something great of the area.