I did start to buck up over my rather late breakfast. It's not every day that an Olympic gold medalist sits down at your table and starts chatting over a full English breakfast.
Rebecca Romero is a very unique athlete. An Olympic silver medallist and World Champion in the sport of rowing, Rebecca took up cycling with the aim of achieving the same elite standard. In a rapid rise through the ranks in track cycling she shattered British records and became double World Champion and Olympic Champion all within two and a half years in the sport. This made her the first British athlete and only the second woman in history to medal in two different sports.
Meantime, unknown to either of us and completely by chance our bikes were getting close up and personal as I discovered when I went to collect mine. There was no mistaking her state of the art time trial machine there in the racking the very next one to mine.
We started with a climb over the Shropshire hills before dropping down and on to the Cheshire plains. It should have been the easiest day but we were greeted by a very cold headwind which made life somewhat more uncomfortable. I started gently but by the second feed station was feeling back to normal, rolling in to Base Camp at Haydock Racecourse with a large group. Fantastic to see the 2 downhill skier paralympians riding hand cycles with us today. How hard must that be?
Our briefing this evening was brimming with Olympians and Para Olympians all encouraging and motivating us.
To be precise, James Cracknell, Sarah Storey and Barney Storey.
Tomorrow we cross Shap Fell en route to Penrith. Time for bed!
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