- ODO 899km
- Location Rhineland-Palentine, Germany
- Weather 15-32 – sunny humid and hot!
- Feelings Tired in the morning but happy in the afternoon – I think hills effect my feelings a lot!
I slept the whole night through for the first time. I think my cold is pretty much over at last. Now I have just the standard hay fever made worse by the European spring and the fact I’m breathing in and firing pollen into my eyes at 20km/hour as I pedal along for 12 hours each day.
My spirits started low in the morning. To save battery I stopped myself listening to music or podcasts (which I still have to do out of the speakers because of my lack of headphones) being nearly a week away I’ve started to feel the loneliness.
The feeling continued until lunch and worsened thanks to some pretty steep hill that I’m still really struggling with.
For lunch though the path opened up into a vista overlooking new wind turbines being built. I ate a giant baby bell and sandwich and I managed to get a 15 minute nap to boot.
I passed through some very industrial areas with a lot of tattooed men with mohicans meeting for beers. It’s also a Saturday night so every home owner is out pruning weeds.
In the afternoon things flattened out to the point where I felt better, I even broke my rule and put on my chart music playlists to power through an extra 10km. I even met a lovely women on the way to a gig by bike. We chatted all the way and exchanged details. She spoke about enjoying having separated from the father of her children and her new boyfriend who she was also spending time away from this night for the gig. She even invited me along. I feel silly for not excepting it to be honest but I’m so hungry and focussed on getting to Stuttgart tomorrow. Her house was half an hours ride back up the road. If I don’t take these opportunities though, like with Mit, then what the point of the trip other than a physical challenge.
As I wait an age for my rice to boil rice (In Apple flavoured sparkling water I bought by accident) I’m thinking deeply about how I can handle opportunities like this in the future, with a faint baseline in the distance reminding me of what I’m missing.
