I guess one of the advantages to riding for small teams throughout your career, means that if you have a decent amount of ability you can pick and choose which races you want to do during the year and skip the ones that dont interest you. It was certainly my experience in the US even through until Bissell, when the team added mountains of strength. Ironically the first time i nearly had to deal with missing a team was going to be the 2008 edition of the Tour de Georgia, which turned out to be the best 7 days of racing i could have ever hoped to string together.

So now, despite being sick for the last 4 weeks, it still hurts to watch your team mates disappear to the US for Univest and be sitting in my apartment all alone for 6 days. The sting made all the worse due to the fact that i had to drop them at the airport for their departure, which was a 3am-7am job…grrrr…

I guess, on a very small scale i am getting a taste of what it is to be on a big team. A team that has constant rotation of its roster and consistent battles for positions on teams. Simon Gerrans experienced it this year with the Tour…and im sure that it has happened to everyone at some point in time…but this is my experience with it. Having said that, i dont deserve to be there in our team of 6. This is not a complaint about our selection for teams…just merely a reality of the sport that i have never faced before…

Fortunately i am writing this later than i initially intended and we can see the benefit of racing without me…the boys rocketed in the TTT and won the opening stage, with my roomie and best mate Mamos, now in yellow for the road race. A jersey that i think he will keep today. He is flying and i find it hard to believe that anyone can challenge his overall lead today…my prediction is either him or Starchyk will also take todays road race honours…but whatever happens, im sure that the boys will bring home the yellow jersey.

Mean while, i count down to my finial race for 2009. A 1 day race not far from Lucca and then my flight that leaves for home the very next day. It has been a long and successful first season in Europe. Lots of great learning experiences and lots of great racing to add to my training diary as having experienced. But this year, different to most i will go home and put the bike in the shed earlier than usual. It is my normal schedule to compete all of October in Australia, with Tour of Tasmania, Herald Sun Tour and then Melb-Warrnambool…but this year, as it has been my longest and hardest the bike will get a rest. Instead i will challenge myself with the Melbourne marathon on October 11. From my last race i have 3 weeks to train my body to run and try and achieve my goal of a sub 4hr marathon time. This idea has been in the back of my mind from the beginning of the year…to most it would seem to be my attempt to measure myself against Lance…but it is actually inspired by Judith Arndt. She did a similar thing in 2007 a few weeks after Road Worlds, and now its my time to swap the carbon soles for the rubber and feel the beat of my feet on the pavement…should be interesting…

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