Hey everyone, I hope you guys rested up from reading this blog like I did over the weekend. We will be skipping days 25, 26 and 27 as I wanted to not only rest from the cycling but from the blog and everything else to do with the ride. It was a good few days, lots of rest and lots of sun. May have burnt my back and front but there nearly on there way to catching up with my arms and legs. Health wise, the saddle sore is almost better, didn’t give me any problems today, although I’ve probably just jinxed it and it will come back to haunt me tomorrow. The legs feel fine and even the numbness has died down in my hand. It still wont close up and I cant use it properly yet but only 3 more days cycling until I can rest it for good.
I forgot to mention on Thursdays blog that I had seen a man with a puncture during the days ride. I shouted over to him and asked if he was ok in Spanish, then he answered me in French! lol
Well today has been somewhere near my hardest day. In fact I’m probably going to say that it has been my hardest day. I shall tell you why later. I set off a little later than normal and it was cloudy all morning. Which suited me as It meant I didn’t have to deal with the roasting sun that I had done all weekend. Then by the time I was ready to set off the sun had come out to play and made the days ride even harder! At one point when I stopped for more water the sweat was dripping off my elbows. I was sweating so much that it was also dripping off my eyebrows and onto the inside of my glasses. To make matters worse on at least 3 occasions there was a fly that wanted to tag along for the ride, It kept landing on my face as I was on one of the climbs. So annoying but I couldn’t do much as I had to keep on pedalling.The views today were awesome, in the distance you could see these really dark hills with more dark hills behind them. At first you think they look nice, its not until you realise that the road your on isn’t going around them, but its going straight over them, great! At one point I had to take a photo of my elevation map on the sat nav just to prove that I was at my highest point in a climb. This as you can see is something that I then took a lot of photos of. The first climb wasn’t my only one, the second climb was one of the hardest climbs ive done over the last 24 days riding. At one point it was hurting so much that I was shouting out and hearing the echoes in the hillside. I was shouting all sorts of things just to try and take my mind off it. I haven’t spent as much time standing up on my bike to pedal as I have done today. I started to take photos at every corner I got to as I thought they were in fact the highest point and round the bend would be where I start to descend. But no the terrain had other ideas and just kept going and going. Every bend I got to I then turned and climbed another 100 foot. This went on for about 600 foot! That is now the highest I have ever climbed. I had to keep thinking of the possible massive downhill section at the end. It was the only thing keeping me going.
Because of this hard day in the saddle, it doesn’t actually feel like I have had a break, I could almost do with another day off now!I had to stop at one point to take a photo of these two signs. Remember how a few days ago I told you how the measurements in Spain were all wrong and incorrect. Well here’s proof, literally within 100 meters of each other are two signs for the same place, one saying 4km to go and then the other one saying 2km to go. Very strange.
If I had to compare today to a boxing match, it would have been one hell of an ugly slug fest!The bike box has made its way to my destination and everything is there waiting for me, just 3 days standing in the way now. Hopefully they will be coastal roads and on the flats as 3 more days like today and ill end up with jelly legs for life!
Today’s journey was 80.54 miles, riding time of 5:35:16, max speed 31.94 mph, avg speed 14.41 mph, 4878 calories, 6.5 litres so far.
I Just Felt Like Cycling 