Day 5 – Thursday 15th Monmouth to Clun
This day was described as easy…easy, relative to what? Sitting on a sofa? No easy relative to the days plugging up hills in Devon, which means it’s still pretty hard in my book.
Anyway I woke up headache free, I have found out what is causing the headaches – red wine deficiency…I had a nice few glasses of Pinotage last night, and the body had obviously been wondering what had happened to the wine intake because I felt fine first thing. No headache – a bliss. Other reasons could be that I have stopped taking the rehydration powders which have significantly upset the whole digestive system (no more details will be forthcoming but I am sure you know what I am talking about!)
Today was largely flat although the legs felt a bit heavy this morning, Michaela was moving well, I struggled in the morning. We took our time and did a very slow day, however we got there. Started off at 9am and got in around 5.30 pm – a fair day’s work.
We went through lovely countryside, got wet in several rain showers, saw a crazy hedge, a great lunch where we met my Mum, Dave and Holly the collie – the only camera shy collie in the world. Bring out a phone or a camera and she’s off!
We arrived in Clun a pretty village in Shropshire with a medieval castle after a 58 mile pedal. Had a lovely pub dinner with the gang and an early bed. Big day in terms of mileage tomorrow.
The group we are with (23 of us) are all fantastic. There are many moving and different reasons for people doing this big challenge, and they fall largely into these groups. Firstly cyclist who fancy what most people consider to be the greatest cycle challenge in the UK, just for the challenge, secondly those who are doing it for charity and have been moved by something important for them and thirdly people who are doing it for loved ones, who have suffered illness or worse as a way of honouring them. As I said all just fantastic people with very different and often very moving reasons for doing this.
Whilst pedalling along I have been think about how cycling is a metaphor for life, so here are some of my thoughts. I am sure in the coming days I will have time to generate more!
- · You can only ever see the next hill.
- · …and when you get to the top of the hill, you can often find it isn’t the top
- · You only see the hills in front of you rather than all the ones you have already conquered
- · A mile travelled is better travelled with companions
- · Any seemingly impossible task can be broken down into the next steps, then the next steps and then..
- · One pedal at a time
- · Life is all about turning the blue line into a purple line until there is no line left and then you can stop...
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Day 5 - Thursday 15th August - Monmouth to Clun - 'easy' :) by Bike27 at Garmin Connect - Details
