Christian Vande Velde is an American cyclist who finished fourth in last year’s Tour de France. Riding this year for the Garmin-Slipstream team, Vande Velde will file periodic updates of his experiences at the Tour.

No one needs to be a professional bike racer, riding 200 kilomoters a day up and down mountains in searing heat and freezing rain. You do it because you love it.On days like Sunday, a brutal mountain stage at the Tour de France, you take inspiration wherever you can get it. I didn’t give up because I knew that my friends and family who are watching at home weren’t giving up on me.

As I came across the finish on Sunday, I found myself holding onto the guardrail (or should I say Gavin, my soigneur), unable to catch my breath. I was suffering the entire climb and had no idea what state I truly was in until I was forced to stop 10 feet past the finish.

Heaving, trying to get a hold of myself, I realized that I hadn’t held anything back and thus have no regrets  everyone’s worst enemy.