Day 7-8

Day 7
I made a decision to stop putting pressure on myself, with unachievable expectation from then onwards I was going to try and make my expectations more reasonable, instead of aiming to do 70 km's in a day and then being mad with myself because I only made 40, I was going to aim for 40. On the upside for the first time the pain in my legs was diminishing  and I was getting more conditioned. for the saddle (polite way of saying my bum wasn't so sore)



Not sue if I get this sign on the toilet seat at my last night accommodation

Day 7, I planned to ride to from Parkville to Nanaimo which was 40km's. The day started badly with a flat tyre. ever hopeful I  pumped it up, 15 km's later it was flat again, so I grudgingly changed the tube. I was getting lots of practice at changing tyres and pumping up wheels with my very small pump. I finished the day and another screw had come out of my shoe, seems like Deja-vu. The lady at the cycle shop had put new screws in but hadn't tightened them hugely, guess I can't complain it was free and very friendly. Its much nicer when you can be mad with someone ha ha. No bike shop available so I had to tighten them seriously and hope for the best, luckily it was my left shoe and as I was riding on the right hand side so I was pulling off my left foot first. At least I wasn't at risk of falling over when my foot wouldn't come out of the cleat. Something I have to admit t had conventionally forgotten to mention had happened twice so far on this trip. Each time I toppled over to the right when starting, with my right foot still in the cleat trapped under the bike. Would have made for some funny pictures luckily no one was around to catch the moment.

Departure bay just outside Nanaimo

The whole trip so far had been very lonely but that night I was feeling especially lonely, I hadn't had more than a 5 minute conversation with anyone since Ruby Lake, lots of text messages and a WhatsApp  call to Mandy and the kids was all that was keeping me sane, but the time difference was making it very difficult, by the time they are ready to chat I was cycling, by the time I finish cycling they were sleeping. So unless we chatted during cycling hours or breaks during cycling it was very difficult. While I was on bell the roaming rates weren't to bad 5 rand a meg, I had turned off background tasks from using data and in 6 days I had used 20 megs for maps and WhatsApp  so R100. The last few days only Rogers had been available and that was R220 a meg so would have been R4400 for the equivalent. I had planned to get an American Sim when I got into the states, but it hadn't seemed worthwhile in Canada.

Day 8.

Rather large ice-cream

Left my rather grungy motel cycled a couple of km's then stopped for breakfast, a benny Canadian term for eggs benedict. Then cycled 15 km's stopped for an ice-cream another 15 and lunch. The last 15 were a bit tougher. It was seriously hot and I went through huge amount of liquids 3 litres  of water and 4 sodas. One sodas I thought was orange turned out to be cream soda and orange not great. In total I cycled 47 km's at about 18km's per hour. that excludes breaks for breakfast, ice-cream, lunch and just simple to get my breath back. I was typically cycling 5km's then taking a 5 to 10 minute break. So my typical day was 7 hours of cycling time, 2 to 3 hours for breakfast lunch and then another hour of quick breaks with just under 3 hours of actual cycle time. I was hoping that when I was fitter I could reduce the stops and increase the average speed, to up the daily mileage. That night I was staying in Crofton, very close to the ferry, The next morning I was catching a ferry to Salt Spring Island. I went to the local pub, met a Canadian couple who were friendly chatted for a couple of hours, which made a difference from having dinner on my own.

8 days of cycling and my fitness did not seem to have got much better, typically in the afternoons, my energy levels seemed to plunge, I was worried how much longer till I could increase the mileage. Regretting my laziness when it came to training!!!