It's just gone six in the morning and I'm at the airport heading back home to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /?>
Spain after my final race of the year.   Yesterday was the Paris-Tour World Cup. My final UCI race for the 2003 season.   It was also my final race with Team CSC.   I will not be continuing with the team next year and instead, have signed a contract with the mighty green French team, Credit Agricole.   For good or bad, I don't know.   In the end, I wasn't presented with a whole lot of options and when I weighed things up, this seemed like the smartest option to take.   I feel a bit apprehensive about the whole move because it's never easy changing teams, having to settle in and finding your place in the team.   But at the same time, the management of the team have been really awesome about getting me settled straight into things and so far they've been super organised so that's gotta be good.   More than anything, I feel a huge sense of relief.   It's been a rough time for Carole and I over this silly season of contract signing and we're just glad the madness is finally over. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

Anyway, the race...I had a terrible night last night.   I always thought that after a big race like a World Cup, my body would shut down I'd be able to sleep well.   For some reason it's the opposite.   I always find it really difficult to sleep.   What made it worse was that I was in a shite airport hotel room.   I was rooming with Lars Michaelson who was sleeping like a trooper.   I didn't want to disturb him so I just lay there quietly, watching the minutes tick by on the t.v clock display.   Hence, the reason why I'm at the airport 2hrs 30min before my flight.   I think this would have to be a bit of a record for me....usually I'm just making my flights in the nick of time....unless of course Carole has anything to do with it!   Ideally, I would've liked to have written this last night.   I had so many thoughts bouncing off the side of my head about the race yesterday and my future with Credit Agricole but tapping away on the computer at 2am in the morning didn't seem overly considerate to Lars.

I approached yesterday's race with an intense focus.   I did well in it last year and knew that I had the form to do even better this time round.   I felt that it was my chance to take my career to the next level if I could win or get on the podium.   I was feeling super strong and knew from Franco-Belge and my training during the week, that I was flying.   I just had to do things right.   It's good to win regularly during the year and have consistent results, accumulating a good amount of points throughout the