Koen's report of stages 9 & 10 and the rest day at the Vuelta

Stage 9 was another stage that would end with an ascent but the rest of the day would be ok with less climbs that the previous days. At the start of the stage the pace was quite hot but eventually 4 got away who built up a maxium lead of about 10 minutes. For the Skil-Shimano team and for myself it was not a day to go in the break as we wanted to save our energies for the finishing climb. It worked out well as the gap to the leading group was kept small due to several teams and when the finishing climb began I joined a group behind that focused on finishing the stage. We came in well within the time limit without wasting energy as the first week and a half have been hard enough and there will be plenty of chances coming up for me to attack!
Stage 10 was a time trial stage, 47km individual time trial on light hilly terrain. It wasn't my plan to go full blast seen as it wouldn't be a day that I would be in for the win but as I wanted to come in within the time limit, it wasn't going to be training stage either. With that plan in my head, I started the time trial and I settled into a rhythm to hold my speed which was good for 56th place. Not at a single point did I feel like I was going into "the red" rather I made a good training at my own rhythm.

Today is the first rest day of the race, and I feel better and recovered after saturday's stage seen as I aimed to save as much energy as possible over the past 2 stages. It was great though to have a real rest day especially seen as we did not arrive at the hotel in Galicia in the Northwest of Spain until about 11 last night, after a transfer of about 500km. On the rest day you can't just rest as you do need to get some training in so this morning I did an hour and a half. It wasn't a leisurely tourist pace but a good hard training to keep the tightness in the legs. We checked out tomorrow's finish (stage 12) which will likely end in a sprint, which is very important for us to know! Now I'll spend the rest of the day relaxing in bed, which right I can't think of a better place to be.

Greetings,

Koen