back on the road again

I am back on the roads again towards Lourdes and the Pyrenees after an amazing pit stop that I could take with some friends of Laure, our great secretary of the Escola da Esperança, that are living close by Toulouse. They took care of me in a very nice way so I could recover my knee and my achilles tendon, which got pretty bad last Thursday.

I hope you will enjoy my upcoming stories and pictures, I hope this finds you well.

The days before my pit stop in Ondes I had pretty tough cycling days. After my way up to Puy Mary I didn’t really take care of my muscle recovery and cycled quite long distances, hoping that my body could still recover during the night. Luckily I had very beautiful locations on some farmer’s land with really sympathic hosts that offered me tomatoes from the garden, half a dozen eggs and a delicious craft beer for the way.

I told you last time that I entered a very dry area, in which it didn’t rain for months. Unfortunately the rain I encountered was very intense, but local and so the landscape was crying for water. I went through this forest, where many oaks started to drop their leaves, it was a bizarre and sad beauty – like the waterfall.

After a while on the road I was again cycling at a canal that made cycling a bit easier. It also changed the temperature and the feeling of freshness, cycling close to water and in the shade of trees makes life just so much easier. Even though the paths can sometimes become a bit boring, I very much appreciated the ease and gentle tailwind that pushed me.

Unfortunately I had stressed my legs too much in the beginning of the week and didn’t act on it appropriately. Even though I was approaching my 1000 km milestone I was not feeling like celebrating, my pain was mostly with my tendons and only minor muscular, I was not sure what I could do. Luckily I had asked Laure wether she had friends or family in the region, and luckily she responded with a contact that was living right at my route and so I could take my next rest at their house.

They were a big help to me, I was taken into their family with huge openness and hospitality. I was able to sleep in a proper bed and in the evenings I was taken on a culinary journey through the french cuisine. Friday night was the first time I ate oysters and with it we had shrimps, chicken and not to forget some delicious cheese.

The next day I had the chance to work on my bike, to wash it and to do some minor fixes. Most important was the change of position I made with the support and advice of Damian, who said my pain would most likely appear due to wrong saddle and shoe positioning. So we had all that changed and had some really nice talks about our shared hobbies, running and cycling.

It was a treat to have a time to breathe out and to relax with great people. The two kids were also really charming, even though it was difficult to speak the same language they were very curious and making contact. In the afternoon we had a great session of Mario Cart, and later I could help their daughter with some English for school.

Sunday morning was already time to say good bye and I left with a lot of gratitude and also a bit of sadness, I could have stayed also much longer.

I had a new map that Mara draw for me and was full of new energy towards my next challenge: The Pyrenees.

The day began with a great feeling overall, I felt all my recovered spots and was happy for the rejuvenation. The new position on my bike was still unknown and I still needed to get used to it. I wanted to keep the intensity low on that day, so I would not do the same mistake again and have sore muscles and challenged tendons on day one.

Unfortunately I had a day full of inner mountains to climb and pain to deal with. For the past weeks I had a great connection to myself, but on that day many of my unsolved questions in my current life and specifically of my relationship with my partner were hitting me very hard. It was crazy to observe again how my inner, psychological pain had so much power to wear me down more quickly than my real physical challenges before. It was what I mostly feared, that this would happen on my ride when I can’t reach out so easy for my friends.

I took it not too bad and was lucky I found a nice bar with some nice people (I was riding through abandoned countryside) where I ended my evening with some cold french craft beer. Afterwards I slept under a beautiful tree that watched over me for the night close to a lake.

Now you find me sitting in a nice cafe 50km away from Lourdes, I was too lazy to continue after lunch as temperatures climbed up to 35°C and most of my riding is on black tarmac and no trees. So I decided to drink coffee and write my diary and share some of my moments with you.

Wish me luck that my body adjustes even more to my new position on my bike, because after Lourdes I am directly climbing into the Pyrenees and I had scouted a new challenge for me. I want to take again a day off cycling and climb one of the bigger summits in the area. This time the altitude lays around 2.500 meters and the walk would be 2 times as long as my previous. I will decide that once I am past Lourdes and see how things are.