Touring France from bed at 5:30 a.m.

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It happened. The racing heart, the feeling of both extreme joy and blissful safety. While I watched the Tour de France this morning at 5:30 I saw them. The blue and green direction markers that point the way to the press center. Those markers meant, on dozens of occasions during 21 days, that my inner compass had worked.

Despite its lessened status among American sports fans since Lance Armstrong retired and Floyd Landis had to turn back his doping-tainted title and since the sport of cycling became the benchmark for cheating winners even if it turns out many other sports are just as shady when it comes to illegal doping, despite all that I adore the Tour de France.

Having covered it for three straight years, from prologue through the parade laps in Paris when Armstrong won his final three titles (yes, we were the typical Americans riding in for a red, white and blue Texas story and so what? Anyone notice how many Japanese reporters came to the U.S. swim trials to chronicle the results of one American who was going to be the top challenger to the Japanese swimmer?) I got into a July rhythm that’s hard to stop.

So now that I’m not covering the Tour I still watch every morning. Coverage starts at 5:30 and I’m not ashamed to say I stay up all night. There is nothing quite like covering an extended sporting event like the two-week tennis Grand Slams or the Tour. Every day an unexpected story breaks out. Little novels could be written about the daily goings on. The beauty of it is, you never know what the little novels will be.

At this Tour I have a feeling one of the ongoing stories will be about the two American teams, Garmin-Chipotle and Team Columbia. Monday morning a bright, young American rider from Garmin-Chipotle, Will Frischkorn, almost won the third stage that finished in the Brittany city of Nantes. The 27-year-old from Boulder boldly led a breakaway early in the race and nearly held on before Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin nipped him at the finish line.

Not that he has a chance of winning the overall yellow jersey at the end but Frischkorn is third after three stages and charismatic young Kim Kirchen of Luxembourg who is riding for Team Columbia, is fifth.

Besides seeing those beloved directional markers (you were given either a blue or green parking pass with your press credential. That pass got you everywhere, around barricades, onto the Tour route every day and into alleys and cul de sacs and tiny parking lots where you would be allowed to park backward, sideways, on sidewalks, upside if you could do it) and the arrows always led to the beloved daily press center where you would find a table, a power source, a giant movie screen with the race turned on, a buffet and a toilet. If the buffet had meat innards or jellied pigs feet or other things I might not normally have for lunch, there was always cheese. Spectacular cheese that went with the fresh bread of the region. In July now, I find myself craving gooey, runny, warm, smelly French cheeses.

Also missed are those mass sprint finishes where the rainbow-colored peloton bears down on the hapless two or three guys who have gallantly ridden out front for dozens of miles. On Sunday it happened to be four Frenchmen who hunkered down across the windy roads of Brittany until there was about a mile and a half left when the peloton swallowed them whole and spit out Norwegian Thor Hushovd for the stage win. It is magnificent to watch the working peloton even if it is gut-wrenching to see the ever-optimistic breakaway riders left gasping after the finish line with nothing to show for their miles and miles of lead work except emptiness and the thought there were 19 more days to go.

Tuesday is the first time trial. Don’t even have to set the alarm.

And here is a link to Frischkorn’s daily diary at VeloNews. Besides having a promising cycling career, the guy has a way with words.

-- Diane Pucin