Sam Bennett had a horrible day on the Tour of Britain, with his team mate also getting his head run over - as the photo below shows.
By: Sam Bennett
Wednesday September 10, Stage 4: Worcester to Bristol (185km)
My NetApp Endura team had a bit of panic en route to the stage start this morning when our sat nav decided to bring our massive team bus down a single lane road, barely fit for a small car.
The road was so narrow we had to absolutely crawl along and even had to get people to move their cars into their driveway so we could get past.
For a while we thought we wouldn’t make the start at all, but thankfully after about 10km of squeezing down the lane, we came out onto a much bigger road and everything was fine.
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But that was off the bike.
On the bike was a different story, and I had a horrible day on the road to Bristol.
As the protected rider on the team today, I was supposed to go for a result at the stage finish but after just a few kilometres, I was struggling.
Some days are better than others...
Straight from the start, I realised I had very little power in my legs and any time the peloton was lined out, I was really suffering.
Sometimes I can just have days that begin like that but I come around later on.
At Rund um Koln in Germany earlier in the year, I felt so bad in the first half of the race that I seriously considered pulling out but my legs came around halfway through and I ended up winning it.
In the hope that the same would happen today, I tried to save energy any time I could by moving up on the descents and drifting back on the climbs but it just didn’t work.
After 80km or 100km, I felt like I was going to be dropped and told the lads that I wouldn’t be able to contest the sprint at the end and to try and set up our British rider Scott Thwaites instead.
With 15km to go, Scott got something stuck in his wheel and had to go back to the team car for the mechanic to sort it out.
The remnants of Sam Bennett's NetAp Endura teammate Scot Thwaites' helmet after a motorbike ran over his head yesterday.
While he made his way back up through the cars I waited for him at the back of the bunch with the intention of bringing him up as far as possible and into a good position for the finale.
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But after only getting him three quarters of the way up, I blew my lights and finally lost contact with 10km to go.
I’d like to think I’ve just had a bad couple of days and that I’ll come around again but I’ve had a sore throat for the past few days that’s slowly but surely been getting worse and today it was hard to swallow during the stage.
I hope it’s not a recurrence of the virus that hit me while out training a couple of days after the Tour of Norway last month.
Unable to finish my session for the first time this year, at the time I couldn’t understand what was wrong. But the next day I couldn’t get out of bed and had cold sweats and aches and pains for the next three days.
I slept for almost two days straight, couldn’t eat and ended up having to take a week off the bike but I still had a headache from it coming into this race.
I came back fairly slowly but and now I’m wondering if I came back a bit soon.
I honestly don’t think it’s anything to do with me coming towards the end of my first year racing in the pro peloton as I had a week’s holiday after the national championships and all of July with no racing.
I’m disappointed with today. I know I shouldn’t be going this bad as I’ve put a lot of work in since July to be in good condition for this race. But there’s not a lot I can do about being sick.
We have a team doctor here but it’s a bit too early for antibiotics so there’s not much he can do at the moment.
Tomorrow is another hard day, so hopefully I can get through that and maybe try and get another result later on.
Scott ended up crashing in the last kilometre today, getting tangled up with a Movistar rider and smacking himself off the barriers.
When he fell, the TV motorbike that was right behind him, ran over his head and then fell on top of him, smashing his helmet to bits.
Although he seems okay at the minute, Scott has a big bruise behind his ear after the incident.
I guess I won’t be the only one with a headache tomorrow.
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