Day 22 – When the going gets tough

I think the last 22 days have finally started to remind me just how far I’ve come. My legs were very tired today and I think I was mentally tired today throughout parts of the ride. You have to keep your concentration levels up all the time, as one little bolt, screw, rock or any debris can really effect you as we all know from day 2. You can’t really afford to look off the road ahead of you for any length of time. But anyway I got here in one piece.

I didn’t mind the counting down of sign posts today as I knew in my head I would take a photo of the 1000km sign. I then thought to myself why not get a photo with it swell, so jumped over the barrier and set the self timer up. Yeah funny how no one was just casually strolling past at this point. But don’t worry folks I haven’t still got to do another 1000km, I think its now only several hundred. I didn’t get to see a sign for Benicassim until there was only 9km to go. Which spurred me on to ride a little faster, until I looked ahead and saw a mammoth hill, that definately took it out of me and lucky enough it was a coast all the way into the town.

Benicassim seems to be a nice place so far, I’m yet to venture out and look for somewhere to eat, and hopefully its different to most of the other places I have stayed. As my night meals have been hard to find. Staff at where I’m staying seem very friendly, the woman here kept saying how nice my bike was. The man was just calling me Lance Armstrong, I don’t think he could speak much English. I told them about where I had come from and where I was heading off to. Funny thing was they seemed to be more shocked that I was riding to Malaga rather than the fact I’ve just cycled 1400 miles to get here! Showered up and washed my kit, then headed down the beach for a cheeky hour. Had a nice little lay down, but was a little bit concerned about my tan lines. Now for those of you that haven’t seen them I will have to put a pic up at the end of the week. But they are ridiculous! So I read a little bit of my book, pic below for any of you interested in what I’m reading. I have read some other Dirk Pitt novels and I like them. Not that far into this one as haven’t had much time to pick it up. Hopefully have it finished by the end of my break at the weekend.

Long day planned for tomorrow, its looking like its going to be back to back 90 mile days for the next 2. Wish me luck…

Today’s journey was 68.73 miles, riding time of 4:35:24, max speed 29.5 mph, avg speed 14.97 mph, 4026 calories, 6 litres so far.