Day 4 Hereford to Chirk (86 miles) Day 4 began with a breakfast fit for a king! Fruit juice with museli, followed by full English then toast and jam. Following breakfast we re assembled our bikes which we had to store in our van the previous night, said goodbye to Ken and Aby, who had stayed with us at the B&B and were on our way at the crack of dawn, which this morning was 9:30am. The first few miles were a slog, the heavy breakfast took it’s toll. Getting the balance right between not taking in enough fuel for the journey, and loading too much to quickly can be a tricky process. Steve and Lee however seemed like they were on fire as the distance between me and them grew steadily. Keeping them in my sights, I managed not to lag too far behind and kept up, just! This was the most difficult starting point of the journey so far. Having only just sat in the saddle, it felt like I had already completed 70 plus miles. A quick check of my mileage and realisation hit that I was only at 10 miles! In every LEJOG, there are up days and down days, with the pain I was experiencing in my lower back, combined the realisation that this was going to be another 86 mile day, rather than the 76 I had imagined, this was going to be a tough day. IT is at times like these that small rhythmic mantras pop in to your head that you repeat over and over with the rhythm of the turn of the crank. Self motivating mantras like, “You can do this” or “Remember the cause” seemed to help. The ones that helped the most however were “must catch Lee and Steve” as they disappeared around the next bend several hundred yards ahead of me. A quick re-gathering at lunch time and by now I was so exhausted, though I was somewhat relieved to discover that Lee was showing signs of struggling too! Is that bad? After lunch, I gave myself a stiff mental telling off and decided I had two choices, continue to lag behind and feel like crap, or push my body as hard as I could, keep the pace and push on toward our goal. From somewhere I found the energy to do the latter, and was surprised that the new mental attitude gave me a real emotional boost. I was boosted further by the fact that for the first time in the day I managed to maintain either matching speed with the boys or for a good portion of the remaining ride stayed in front! About another 10 miles in, and a familiar face appeared out of nowhere! It was very good friend and ex work mate Geoff Dunsmoor. We were now in his neck of the woods which made me feel like the end was in sight. It was actually still 40 miles away, but mentally felt much nearer. Geoff followed us and reappeared on every other junction snapping away with is camera. It felt like being stalked by paperatsi, but in a good way. The final stretch consisted of a very long but shallow hill, which went on for about a 15 mile climb. This was slow progress, but luckily after that we hit a few A roads and our speed went up to the crazy speed of 18 mph. We finally arrived at Chirk to a welcoming committee of Mark, Denise, Callum, Geoff and my mum. As we were applauded in, it felt like we were the returning hero’s from some ancient campaign. A lovely evening was spent in some great company and the comfort of home cooking provided by my mum was extraordinary! After such a long day, it was a most enjoyable evening and really helped with the recovery from a difficult day. Roy
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 06:55:35 +0000
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