Sign in day!

Rest day was needed, I felt off. I think it was twofold now with some time passing. One half was a bit of a pollution burn on the lungs and throat. Other half seems to be a food issue, Thomas also had this. Gerry said he's feeling the throat thing too. 

I'm hoping it'll pass enough for tomorrow's start which isn't too long a day so I could limp through regardless. 

Breakfast was a piece of white toast with honey, a spoon of chickpea dish but couldn't do more, and a coffee. 

We need to sort our gear, but for now I have all my blankets and clothes on in an unheated hotel room with dogs barking and in and out of sleep. 

Had a massage that was in and out of consciousness which was nice. Clear fluids for lunch and dinner, so we'll label this as really fine tuning the weight side of the power to weight ratio ; )  Ha. That's trying to be optimistic, it's been a tough day. The power side is like zilch, just moping around.  Listened to Gerry and the Belgians banter over lunch where I had a water bottle and the pictured "Cinderella" of the mock-tail menu. 

Made racer sign in.  They gave a bunch of stage, attitude and medical talk which was all very sensible. Diamox is UCI banned, but they said they really only care about safety first, and will leave it to the riders to decide. I'm reasonably certain UCI didn't make the rule based on Himalaya crossings, and for me it's irrelevant as a participating and unexceptional middle ager. 

Although I'm basically carb un-loading today, I had a Probar, piece of jerkey, water bottle and 1/ 3 of a can of Pringles for dinner, but it was probably the equivalent of 1/2 an old generation can as these were touted as 40% more cheese-tastic.  That's a win.