The Body Clock Countdown

Passing the witching hour, you head bobs up and down like an apple and the noise fades in and out like you’re in a place of bad reception but alas you are asleep and the cycling has passed you by- again.

Le Tour De France is great, the coverage is even better, but the time-zones? That’s another thing entirely.

It’s a forgivable, yet amateurish mistake, the body clock is not a yoyo to tug and pull on command but rather it is a vibrator, a dildo, whatever you fancy to call it that needs to be warmed up, readied before it’s effect can be taken into account, and in this case the effect is watching the cycling WITHOUT forty winks in between.

Here at the Daily Red, I don’t say I’m perfect, for even this year’s Le Tour De France. 

Laying in the comfort of a bed and the assumption that nothing would happen I shut my eyes with a cockiness I’d hear if anything exciting happened. Needless to say I did not, and one of the Schleck’s attacks, so there you have it ladies and gentlemen, sleep is like EPO to a cyclist during the season; off limits.

Now I am not saying for those three weeks we should all forgo work and be a walking drone for three weeks (though some of you are lucky enough to have minimal hours and function fine, I envy you) it requires a bit of planning, nothing to serious but still enough to drill into your body that this is what is going to happen for while the greatest bike race is on the telly.

What works is not sleeping in through the mornings, nope rather it is having a kip (cat-nap, power nap, forty winks... catch the drift) between dinner and the 10 o’clock wakeup call.

It gives one enough reprieve to stay awake during the stage and I even recommend having a shower before you begin watching the stage, it really helps and especially if it is an alpine stage because there is nothing worse than a) you falling asleep at a pivotal moment or b) the person next to you snoring their heads off..  There is only one surround sound I’d like and that is certainly not it.

This year saw ups and downs and history being made by the first Australian claiming the title, and if anything it resonates to the saying that anything could happen, will happen at some point or another, and why be asleep for that?

Tomorrow we check out the foods that best go with watching cycling, in preparation for the World Championships in Copenhagen in a little over three weeks.

You won't want to miss it!

Til then, 

Daily Red