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Three races, three podiums, but if you really want to talk about winning we have to talk about my 17th place finish in San Sebastian.

Typically, the race did not go as planned but it did go perfectly. Off the back of two team podiums in Clasica Femenina Navarra and Emakumeen Nafarroako Klasikoa, we had the momentum for a result; but, when the breakaway went early just after the Jaizkibel climb and I wasn't in a position to follow, I thought to myself, "well, that could be it." Fortunately, Pauliena, who we had decided would mark Lucy Kennedy, followed perfectly and gave us representation in the break. As I expected, that was the winning win and suddenly our team strategy to get me on the podium was rewritten.

"Where's Ash? Where's Ash!" Pauliena kept repeating into the radio. Lucy Kennedy had gone solo from the breakaway while I was in the peloton slipping further out of radio range. The radios eventually dropped signal completely so for the remainder of the race I couldn't hear what was happening up the road. I did know that I believed in Pauliena. I knew she would fight, dig deep, and make our team proud. I didn't need to be there, she was there.

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I crossed the finish line in the bunch, in 17th place, desperately searching for clues to how the race had finished. I saw Lucy had claimed the win and I hoped Pauliena's hard effort of being in the break for the majority of the race had paid off.

"I'm so sorry," she immediately said to me when I saw her, but I was also hearing and seeing on the screens she had finished 3rd! "Don't apologise, we got third!" I excitedly replied. I was over the moon! Not only because we had claimed a third podium in back-to-back races, but that Pauliena had the success I had seen her work hard for all season long and truly deserved after a classy performance. As her teammate, I was incredibly happy but, as her race leader, I was bursting with pride.

I knew my role as team leader would be more about fortifying confidence than sprinting for the finish line as soon as I saw we would be a rider short for San Sebastian. I knew from my own experience how much of an impact even one person believing in you could make. A few words, a few minutes, just the idea of success was powerful and if I could lead from that position, we had more than a chance for a result. Being the best race leader I could be meant that we could all share in Pauliena's result.

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It may have only been 5 days of racing, but this week felt every bit as long as the first one. As the stage count increases, so does the proportion of the stage spent suffering, and we did plenty of it in the last two days.

My big goal for the week was the time trial, and I saved as much energy as I could in the days leading up to it. Unfortunately for me, so did all of the GC riders. With the time trial coming after only two weeks of racing and being preceded by a rest day, a sprint day, and a GC "detente" day, the circumstances were far from those that led to my success in the Giro d'Italia.

I faced other challenges, as well: all of my energy savings had placed me near the bottom of the GC standings, which meant I would be one of the first starters. That would normally not be a problem, but the La Course by Tour de France women's race was on the course in the window that we would normally do our recon ride, so my options were to ride the course or start the race fresh, but not both. My team adapted well, though, and I jumped in the women's team car for a lap in the morning to see it in person. Then I spent the next couple of hours studying the video I took and committing to memory the line I wanted to take through every corner.

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When it came time to race, I pushed aside all thoughts about what my result might be and focused on my effort: just get to the finish line as fast as possible and see what the result is at the end of the day. I started in a sandwich of race favorites, chasing Tony Martin and being chased by Kasper Asgreen, so if I saw either of them during the race I would either be doing very well or very poorly.

My race started just as I hoped, and I was pleased to discover that the corners looked the same on the bike as they did in my visualizations. When I popped out onto the big road after three kilometers and saw Tony Martin just ahead, it took a moment to process how it could be possible so soon, then I immediately disregarded him as another rider out to make the time cut.

When I crossed the finish line with the fastest time, I had no regrets. I didn't feel that my lack of a pre-ride had made a difference, and I had paced my effort exactly as intended. My time in the hot-seat lasted only 30 seconds, though, broken almost immediately by the Danish machine. As the day wore on, I slowly retreated down the standings, finishing the day just inside the top-20. It was a good ride, to be sure, but not what I had envisioned at the start of the day. After further analysis, my power was on par with my winning ride in Verona, but everybody else simply wasn't tired enough yet, and the level at the Tour de France is unlike any other race. In the end, I'm happy that I did my best race possible.

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Everything was falling apart.

I got off my bike and it was dead quiet. I had just finished the individual time trial at the Giro Rosa and, I knew it wasn't my best day, but was it really that bad? Being met with silence from my team affirmed my worst fears. I had finished three minutes off the pace, out of the top ten, and it was a really hard pill to swallow. At the biggest stage race of the season, as my teammates sacrificed themselves for me, I just couldn't deliver. I rode back to the team bus, taking that silence with me.

I started to spiral. I've had tons of bad races but this felt like more. My period had arrived early, leaving me feeling completely flat and in pain. I had strange and severe stomach pain that was keeping me up at night. Even the skin was sensitive to touch. I couldn't eat and I didn't want to. I knew it wasn't true but it felt like everyone else was having a perfect race while mine was a disaster. Nothing was going right this season, it was just obstacle after set back after bad luck, and now, as I slid down the GC from 3rd to 9th, I felt completely disheartened.

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Of course, all of this was also happening in front of an audience. My teammates, the peloton, friends, family, and fans were all seeing me struggle and so the messages started. What was happening and why, I still wasn't sure, but the support messages were clear: I had to find a way to keep fighting.

I made it through the next two stages, getting dropped, clawing back, and fighting for every single pedal stroke. Every time an attack went or the pace surged, I couldn't draw on my physical abilities like I was used to. I had to really dig deep into my experience to keep it together. My mum called to remind me how I had overcome an eating disorder, a serious head injury and a hip fracture. My husband, who was thankfully there by my side, kept reminding me what I was normally capable of and what we had accomplished, although, really, just his presence was a source of strength. My team was incredibly supportive, fully understanding how much impact your period can have on performance, let alone stomach issues. My phone was also constantly beeping with encouragement from fans through messages on social media. I didn't have the physical power but I was constantly reminded that I did have the strength.

By stage 9, the Queen Stage, the team doctor had helped get my stomach under control and I was over the worst of my period. I started to feel like myself again and Montasio, the big mountain top finish, was my chance to prove it. It was against the odds and the top riders in the world but, finally, my guts were saying let's go for it.

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It's an excellent feeling to set a target, create a plan with my team and my coach, and then nail it - I won the Giro Rosa!

This victory has given me confidence in working toward future goals such as the World Championships or maybe even the Tokyo Olympic Games. I know now that I can be mentally and physically prepared for such significant endeavours.

Winning a big stage race like the Giro Rosa, however, is extra special, even more so than a one-day race. Why? Because no one can win a 10-day race without a strong and committed team - My team is Mitchelton-Scott.

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The moment that my teammates joined me on the final podium to celebrate this overall victory was one of the highlights of the ten days of racing across northern Italy. Being up there on the podium by myself wouldn't have felt right. To celebrate together was incredible, and so much fun.

We went on to celebrate our success with a lovely team dinner in Udine on Sunday night. It was essential for me to commemorate this win together. When I looked at all the people who were seated at our table, I truly felt that everyone contributed something to this victory. I was so pleased that we could all be at one table together, and what’s pretty incredible is that we have more staff than riders!

To give you an idea of what it takes to support a team at the Giro Rosa, Mitchelton-Scott had 14 staff members, not including the riders. We had two sports directors (Alejandro and Martin), three soigneurs (Miha, Nadia and Mattia), two mechanics (Nico and Pat), two bus drivers (Otazu and Jacopo), two photographers (Sara and Luc), along with a videographer (Oliver), our press officer (Lucy) and a physiotherapist (Ellen).

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It's been a long time since I last raced 10 consecutive days, and I'm sure I'm not alone in my relief that we get to take today easy. The last "week" at the Tour de France has been extra long, and also full of long stages. Today we have enjoyed reminding each other that we are actually past the halfway point of the Tour in terms of distance already. Add in a time trial, another rest day, and the final stage into Paris and it starts to seem like we're nearly done…

The Tour has started well, and I mean that in a few ways for a few different reasons. The weather has been great—well, sunny, at least—which helped to calm the peloton's nerves a bit. Good course design also minimized the stress somewhat, and as a result there have been fewer crashes than expected. The team time trial and mountaintop finish also spread the race out a bit early on, which also had a calming effect. Even the "boring" sprint stages haven't always been so, as yesterday's wind certainly livened things up.

Team Sunweb is holding up well—we still have eight strong, healthy riders and our resolve to win a stage has only strengthened after a handful of close calls. Our first big goal was the team time trial, which we performed well in but were blown away by Jumbo-Visma. The tight grouping of teams in the top-10 is a great indicator of how much work teams are putting into the discipline lately. In the past, it seemed that only a few teams would be within a minute of the winners, but now the margins are always quite small.

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Then we started focusing on stages that Michael Matthews could win, which also entailed my own contributions at the front of the bunch a couple of times. Most recently, I was tasked with chasing back the breakaway filled with the heavy-hitters of the breakaway world, most notably Thomas De Gendt. In a cruel twist of the cycling world, my friend and fellow American was also in that breakaway destined for success. His success could have directly benefitted me, as American UCI points affect our nation's allocation of starters in the World Championships and Olympics. But my job that day was to bring it back. That's the sport, sometimes.

Monday was an eventful day. A mountain biker jumped the peloton, and shortly thereafter I got in a small dust-up with George Bennett and Yves Lampaert as I tried to attack on the gravel shoulder, and we did a bit of bumping as I ultimately failed to get past them. I thought the aggression was unnecessary, but part of the road-block game.

It's tough to explain, but I'll try: the breakaway only gets away when there are more people at the front who don't want to attack than those who do. On days where it could be a sprint or a chance for the break, the sprinters' teams can sway the decision by overwhelming the front of the peloton in the neutral section, leaving only a small handful of guys even in a position to attack. With the road blocked, the attacking is done for the day.

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