Days Three & Four
Monday 19th September
No rain and no punctures! It was a very good day.
We left Somerset nice and early and then took ages navigating through Bristol. The cycle paths are great, they just take a bit of figuring out. It was cool to reach the severn bridge… and feel the movement on it. It’s unreal!
Two countries and five counties in our 99.6miles today!
England and Wales….. & Somerset, Avon, Monmouthshire, Heredfordshire and Shropshire.
Luke left us last night (he only joined us to ride for Day 1&2) and we missed him today.
I really do want to write more, but I’m tired and my brain isn’t working… This picture of the boys just after we arrived at our campsite here in Ludlow I think says it all!
Tuesday 20th September
As you can tell from the little I wrote about yesterday we were rather tired. We all woke up this morning… still rather tired! Waking to hear the rain pouring down outside didn’t help motivate us to get going either. However, we managed to get on the road just before 8am and the peddles were turning once more.
All day yeaterday I had a slight nagging pain in my left ankle. This morning my ankle was swollen and very sore. As luck would have it, we have a physio on the team – Matt. He looked at it and decided I needed to do two things; adjust my cleet (I prefer to call it my clicky foot!) so that there was less movement in my ankle as I peddled and strap my ankle up.
It really helped – thank god. I’m not sure that I could have done many more miles with it as it was.
A sore ankle might not sound that serious, but in the same way blisters can end an Everest expedition such an injury can finish a trip. Obviously the best treatment is rest, I knew I had 700miles to go and I got really worried.
This morning as we peddled through the rain, we were all beginning to feel the pain of the first few hundred miles. It was a little bit miserable if I’m honest. Shropshire has stunning countryside but we didn’t get to enjoy it. We were cold, wet, tired and I was in pain.
At 11am, we had a scheduled breakfast stop at Matt’s parents house. Amazing what a hearty breakfast and some tlc from parents can do. An hour later we set off from there in much higher spirts and as the rain stopped, our smiles returned. Thank you very much Michael and Gillian!
The rest of the day has just got better and better. The rain didn’t return and the country lanes as we rode into Cheshire have been lovely to ride along. We did 100miles again which takes us well over 1/3 of the journey. yeeaahhhh…
This evening it seems we have hit gold. I have family up this way and I gave them little more than 48hrs notice that we would be dropping by for a pitstop tonight. We have had hot, powerful showers, just sat down to the most incredible meal and now the boys are watching football – beers in hand while I sit here writing this. Thank you Trish and Ian…
My ankle is still sore, it’s not worse though. I’ve got a bag of frozen peas around it!
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