TOUR DIARY:I HAVEN'T been feeling great the last few days with a blocked sinus and some congestion in the chest. I felt that things were improving on Sunday but for some reason yesterday I felt a bit worse again. As a result the team has decided to put me on a short course of antibiotics now, so I'll take them for three days.

They sometimes say that can impact on your form but I’ve no idea how it will affect me. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was on antibiotics. But the experienced guys on the team told me that you generally don’t get better from anything during the Tour as your body is under so much stress, so I’m hoping that this helps.

Even if it takes a couple of per cent off my form, it’s definitely worth it go get over this and be in good shape for the Pyrenees or maybe even the last couple of days in the Alps.

On the rest day yesterday I got out for a couple of hours training as planned, just keeping the legs moving so that I feel okay when the race restarts today. It was really nice – this is a wine-growing region so there were some great surroundings. The rest of the day was very relaxing – I’d only one interview to do, so I’d plenty of time to relax, to sleep a bit and to look at the internet.

We also ate well, but that’s the case every day at the Tour. We have our own chef on the race, an American called Sean Fowler, who has set up a mobile kitchen. It means we don’t have to use the hotel kitchens; okay, the hotel we were staying in at the village of Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne had wonderful food, mainly because they are big cycling fans and make a real effort, but generally the mass chain hotels cut corners.

The Tour de France organisers pay them an allowance per person for food and the hotels do a bit of cost cutting to try to do things as cheaply as possible. The menus can be very limited, maybe just pasta or chicken, and that gets very repetitive. Also, there can be a risk of contamination if you use a hotel kitchen. It’s not so much in terms of anything banned being in the food, but rather in terms of avoiding getting sick.

Our own chef make some really great food and does something different every day. That’s great for the morale, and scientific studies show that the body absorbs nutrients better if you are enjoying your food.

The whole philosophy behind our eating is that it is all gluten free; while none of us at the Tour have allergies or are fussy about what we eat, gluten can cause inflammation in the body and so we generally avoid it.

We have red meat once a week and we rotate between fish and chicken on other days. Also, we have rabbit maybe once a week as it has very good nutritional value. Most of the food is also lactose free – he doesn’t use any dairy.

Because the Tour is so tough, we burn a huge amount of calories per day; perhaps three or four times what people normally consume. It is a case of eating yourself full every day, making sure you get enough in.

We eat well in the hotels, starting the day with porridge and an omelette for breakfast. You’ve to get a lot in before the stage.

We also have a load of nutritional drinks – we have a special drink before the race, which contains fats and slow release carbohydrates, then drinks during the race made up of fast-release carbohydrates. We have bars and energy gels as well, although I try to avoid the latter as the solid food is better on your stomach. But once you are in the mountains, you have a lot of gels as you are riding so hard and they are easier to gulp down.

After the stage ends we have two different recovery drinks – one for hydration, and one for protein. It’s important to get food in as soon as possible to start the recovery process, so immediately after the stage we have eggs and rice on the team bus. It might be hours before we have dinner, but that means we are already refuelling as we drive away from the finish. Providing you get things right, it makes it easier to race hard day after day.

The rest day was relaxing for most teams but not so much for the Cofidis squad. One of their riders, Remy di Gregorio, was arrested and is accused of doping. We just read it in the press so it’s hard to say much, but it is a bit of a kick in the balls for cycling. Especially with what we on Garmin-Sharp are doing as a team. We are trying to do it the right way all the time, working so hard to try to prove you can do it clean and without doping, then someone else harms the sport’s image again. It’s pretty annoying, to say the least.