Stage 6, Guijuelo to Caceres (175 kilometres): When you are on a stage race like the Vuelta a España, recovery is crucially important. Think about it: it's three weeks long, there's just two rest days, and the riders are competing for hours each day, often at very high speeds and over tough roads. That fatigue adds up and it explains why it's so important to eat, rest and sleep as well as possible.
Unfortunately things don’t always go to plan. I didn’t have a very good sleep on Wednesday night, although I’m not sure why. Normally I’m a really good sleeper during races, it doesn’t bother me. However, I was tossing and turning all night and while I still slept seven or eight hours, it wasn’t very deep and I woke up feeling tired.
The stage was a flat one so it wasn’t as serious as it could have been, but I was still pretty grumpy for a lot of the day. My body feels good, but I was low on energy. Still, it worked out fine.
The start was pretty crazy. We ride some neutral kilometres each day to get into position before the actual start, but the drop of the flag to signify the real racing is often in peculiar places. It could be on a roundabout or a corner or something. For us, on stage six, it was on a really fast downhill. I think after about 500 metres we were doing 90 kilometres per hour on this downhill, and it took us just a minute and a half to do two kilometres.
It was pretty crazy. It wasn't dangerous or anything, fortunately, as it was a pretty decent road.
Went away
Tony Martin, the world time trial champion, went away on the downhill. He coasted off the front. I don't think he even attacked . . . he just coasted off the front, looked behind, nobody had followed him and he just went away.
I said to some of his team-mates: “I don’t think it was even his plan for the day.” He was there to lead out their sprinter, but in the end he did the whole day on his own. But it made for quite a pleasant day for us, and some really good television at the end when he battled to stay clear.
For those of us in the bunch, the pace was pretty reasonable until the chase started later in the stage. After 30 kilometres we went past the bottom of the climb of La Covatilla, which is where I won my stage in 2011. It was familiar territory for me and it was nice to be back there.
One of the Movistar guys, Pablo Lastras actually pointed it out to me. He said: ‘Look up there, that is where you won the stage.” That was kind of cool.
We had a tailwind all day so it made things very brisk. At one point I stopped for a nature break and was coming back through the cars. I got behind the Sky car on a false flat downhill and hit 95 kilometres per hour, holding that for 10, fifteen seconds on roads that were almost flat. It was pretty damn fast.
Wind from the side
At one point there was a bit of wind from the side. That made everyone nervous in the final part of the stage, but I just stayed at the back with my team-mates, watching the chaos. There was a lot of people jostling for position, trying to be at the front so as not to lose time and also to avoid any crashes that might happen.
As my priority is the world championships, I am a lot more laid back than many of the general classification guys in the race. I was taking a bit of a risk being at the back, given that there could have been a split, but I could see from the wind conditions that it wasn't strong enough to break up the bunch.
Very intelligent
Out front, Tony Martin was being very intelligent. With the tailwind he was pretty much cruising all day. I'd imagine it wasn't easy for him, being out there on his own for over 170 kilometres, but he wasn't exactly killing himself all day. He was still really strong, though.
He was playing games with the peloton and letting us get closer, making us think he was done while also saving his energy for the finale. With 15 kilometres to go I think he had less than a minute or something.
You could see him just ahead with five or six kilometres to go, but then he kept holding off and holding off. If you give Tony some space, he is strong enough to be able to do that kind of thing.
As the kilometres ticked down he was still out there, even though the bunch was chasing hard. It turned what would have been a pretty boring stage for the TV viewers to one of the most exciting. He was finally caught right before the line, inside the final 100 metres. It was really, really close.
My Garmin Sharp team worked to get our sprinter Tyler Farrar into position. I think another 10 metres or so and he would have won the stage.
He has shown he is the strongest sprinter in the race now. Next up is another flat day so hopefully we can get a stage win with Tyler before hitting the mountains again at the weekend.
