By Chad Haga

American pro Chad Haga of Team Sunweb is a four-year veteran at the World Tour level, an avid pianist, and a college graduate with a degree in engineering. Follow along as he reports from the 2017 Vuelta a Espana.

In bike racing, fortunes can turn around at a frightening speed.

Stage 14 began like all the others, or at least so I thought. My stomach was bloated, but I thought that perhaps I just drank too much water at the last minute before the start. It would be another hot day, and I wasn't worried, figuring that I would soon sweat away the bloating. After the breakaway was established, I learned that Sam Oomen was in trouble, totally unable to eat or drink. We were an hour into the 95-degree stage and he'd yet to take a drink, and 20 minutes later he abandoned, dehydrated, and dizzy.

I was still in denial. I had been drinking as much as I could, but it was shortly after Sam abandoned that I realized I was unable to keep up with the rate we were getting new bottles. Normally I can finish bottles faster than we get them, but the third time I was handed a bottle while I still had a full one in my pocket, I knew something was amiss. My bloated stomach had also prevented me from eating. Then Wilco wanted to stop for a nature break and I was completely dry. We'd been riding along easily on flat ground as Sky kept the break in check, but when it came time to get back to the bunch, I felt weak.

Alarm bells were going off in my head, and I informed our captain, Johannes, that I think I had whatever took Sam out, but perhaps not as severe. I handed Wilco off and went into survival mode, determined to limit the team's losses to just one helper.

Eventually my dehydration reached the point that I was dropped on a small climb shortly after the feed zone, discovering just minutes beforehand that Soren was in the same bloated boat. I panicked for a few minutes, thinking that there was no way I could make time cut after being dropped with 50km to go. Then I did the math and realized I had a shot. The remainder of the stage was almost only climbing and descending, and I could still do 280 watts without too much difficulty.

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Soren was worse off than me, so I pressed onward, leaving it to our director to motivate him. I was focused on my own effort, psyching myself up with the knowledge that I have done countless rides in the Texas summer with insufficient water, holding a pace as best I could while managing my dehydration. Sure enough, I finished within time cut (Soren just a few minutes behind me, also safe), my five-hour ride with 10,000 feet of climbing powered by fluids alone.

My discomfort abated significantly after the stage, and I set about refueling for a brutal day of climbing. I managed to get a fair amount of food in before the bloating returned, and I endured a night of poor sleep. By the morning, I felt fine again, and ate as big a breakfast as I dared, but still felt normal. Our team went into hyper-vigilance, throwing out all of the open food packages, separating all the riders, and practically tying bottles of sanitizer to our wrists.

Stage 15 began well for me -- I'd recovered well after my Texan endurance ride and actually had decent legs for the first half of the stage, but gradually I began to fade, again unable to eat at all or drink as much as needed. But I was far enough into the stage by that point that I wasn't worried, and mentally I also struggled less because I knew the climbs from my training camp in April. When I crossed the line with the grupetto, a weight was off my shoulders. I effectively had two rest days, having thrown away any ambition in the time trial. And my wife was waiting in Logrono to cheer me up.

Yesterday I focused on rest and refueling after two tough days that drained my tank, and Kate took my mind off the race as we relaxed and walked around town. It was a trip down memory lane for her, having walked the Camino de Santiago a decade ago.

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