Tour de France

I got to see the tour up close and personal.

With some hectic, last minute hopping from bus to metro to rental car, I got my butt to northern Spain. I crossed the border into the grumpy land known as France. Camping on a field with Basque fans, I woke up the next morning to sunshine on grassy Pyrenean mountains... the stage for an epic day in the Tour de France.

We saw early parts of the stage on the big screen. After hiking to the finish, we decided which part of the road we wanted to watch from, factoring in the number of places we could see them below us, the amount of time we could see them riding along the hillside, and the distance between security guards so that we could run alongside them.

Apparently I was on TV. If you see the footage in the future, I want you to have this thought in mind:
These guys embody athletic perfection in the sport. When I was training, there was some piece of my inspiration that came from a faint hope of racing this very race. And when you're biking there's plenty of time to think about this. All those corny sports movies, where the underdog makes it at the buzzer... that feeling you feel when the crowd stands cheering? That feeling where you can't help but burst out in a fist pumping, Braveheart cry of excitement and victory? That's what it felt like to be so close to these animals, battling towards the summit. That's why I look so excited. I am rejoicing that somebody has achieved the pinnacle, made their body into an unstoppable machine; somebody has become the best.

On a downer note: Yeah, the doping issue factors in, but that's a whole different discussion. It doesn't change how you feel when you're there. It's a spectacle, after all.

On the way back, I stopped by San Sebastian with Sam and KO. One of my favorite towns in Spain. The beaches were so packed that you could see more skin than sand. On a whim, I rented a surfboard and tried that for 3 hours. Then I went for a hike and slept in a bivy sack just outside of town near some homeless people, looking out over the ocean and the town.