Le Tour de France - Day 5 Commences and We Have Hills!

It's Day 5 for Le Tour de France, and we're getting closer and closer to the mountains. Of course, there are a lot of those around France, so pick a direction and if it's East or South, you're probably going to run into one of nature's more perfect boundaries. 

Oh, just look at this. We have topography! We have Cat 3 and
even a couple of Cat 2 peaks. Today is not a day for the
sprinters. It's time for the climbers to grease up their gears. 

Yesterday's stage was a wonderful and exciting finish ... which I actually didn't see. The first time it showed, I was with a customer. The repeat showing, I had a customer come in just as the riders were heading down the final stretch. The night-time repeat and wrap-up ends after I go to bed, so once again I missed actually seeing it. For a TdF Fangirl, this was frustrating! But the rankings haven't changed much - Alaphillipe is still in Yellow, Sagan is still in Green. Viviani took the Stage win. 

Peter Sagan is always a sprinter to be reckoned with. Every time he
has entered Paris on the last day of Le Tour, he's been wearing
the green jersey. This year, so far, he's keeping with his program. 

Today we start pulling in more time gaps as the boys hit the hills. It's 175.5 km from Saint-Die-des-Vosges to Colmar. The general description from the TdF website is: 

Hadn’t he been in the yellow jersey, Julian Alaphilippe would have loved to contest the victory in stage 5 of the 106th Tour de France. It suits the attackers of his type. Like stage 3, the course features prestigious French vineyards in the Alsace region. It means steep hills and beautiful sceneries from the Haut-Königsbourg (66km to go) to the charming city of Colmar that will be a Tour de France hosting site for the eighth time. The 5-km long côte des Trois-Epis with 35km to go is suitable for a big spectacle. It favours a breakaway to succeed but it might as well give an indication on the form of the favourites although they will probably be cautious ahead of an even harder stage to La Planche des Belles Filles set to be decisive for the overall ranking.

Thanks to all for the kind thoughts and comments yesterday. My PT has recommended that I take one additional day of rest mid-week to allow my muscles to catch up with me. I'll be trying to incorporate that on Wednesdays, since that's my "day off" anyway. I'm pleased, though. My arm is rotating an additional 10 degrees without as much pain, so the exercises are starting to work. It's a slow process, and it's supposed to be slow, but even baby steps can have positive results. Yippee! 

Have an excellent Wednesday. I'm off for yet another doctor appointment (I seem to be having a lot of those for a relatively healthy person) and I also have a billion errands to accomplish today. I'll be a very busy person, but it's all good. I'll return tomorrow, hopefully back on a regular schedule.