I’m feeling much better after finally finding the hospital

I've been in great form but I was doing a stage race in Germany — the catchily- titled Thuringen Rundfahrt der Frauen. Ordinarily, in a race like that I'd be up in the front group the whole time.

But I was suddenly coming in 30 minutes down on the leading riders. It was odd as my mind felt great and my legs felt fine but it was just like the engine was broken.

I was about to do the time trial on the Friday when my team manager opted to pull me out. He told me I am young and there wasn't any point in risking me carrying on and he said, "Let's try to find out what's wrong".

Our team doctor is based in a hospital in Switzerland so one of the girls on the team who lives near Basle gave me a lift there. She dropped me off in the centre as I thought "how difficult could it be to find a hospital?" Back at home hospitals are pretty big so I thought I'd find it in a few minutes.

But I couldn't have been more wrong. I was still walking around about an hour and a half later when I spotted a nurse in her uniform and asked if she knew the place? Thankfully, she worked at the hospital and took me there. It was odd, it was just like a part of a housing estate.

Anyway, the doctor did a physical examination and, thankfully, found there was nothing wrong with me so he did some blood tests and I spent the day there waiting for my results.

Well, it turns out it isn't anything serious — I've got a bit of anaemia and I've been given a course of vitamin C and iron treatment.

By the time I got the results on Monday, though, it was too late to make it back to my home in Belgium so it was dinner for one and a night's stay in Basle but it's not a bad little place to be.

What it means is that I'll miss the World Cup team time trial in Sweden this weekend, which I was looking forward to, but I'll be back in action for the Route de France stage race at the start of next month.

I'm a bit disappointed to miss the Swedish event as I've never won a World Cup race and we were going to have a very strong team for the event.

The Route de France is a fairly flat stage race — there are a few hills but no major mountains — and I've been told I can go for the general classification if I want, which is a big responsibility.

Sometimes it's easier just working for another rider as you're just doing a job for someone. But if an entire team are working for you, you obviously don't want to let them down. Added to that, I've never had a team work for me before and hopefully I'll handle it all right. I'm quite sure that I will.

Away from my racing, I watched the men's Tour de France.

It was great to see Cav [Mark Cavendish] winning five stages. I know him well enough to say a friendly hello' to — although I don't know his secrets or anything. Actually I don't think anyone does — but what he did was amazing. He just flew past every other rider like a bullet in the sprints.

I wasn't surprised where Bradley Wiggins finished overall. Sometimes in cycling things work well and sometimes they don't. He'll learn from it and come back stronger and so will I from this little setback.

For more information
on Lizzie Armitstead, visit www.mtc-uk.com