Day 29: Beaten, bloody, burnt & bruised

I called my roomate Iain last night to let him know I was getting close and to see how he was holding fort in toronto. I was around 330km away in Tobermory, but I told him that if the roads were good, and I got a bit of a tailwind, I might try to do it in 2 days.

I've obviously not been paying very close attention on this trip.

As though the moment those words were uttered from my mouth, the damage was done and no amount of touching wood, taking it back or begging for mercy was going to change anything.

It was windy. The roads mostly had no shoulder and sometimes had what I refer to as "the chiropractor". And to top it all off, it was the end of a long weekend.

Cyclists, if I can give you one piece of advice, it is to NEVER travel on the roads leading back to a city after a long weekend. While I'd lost the semis of the trans-Canada, they were replaced by a continuous line of impatient drivers, begrudgingly hauling their lives back to responsibility. I was run off the road twice; once by an RV who wasn't quite aware how long he was when pulling back in front of me, and once by an oncoming car who figured I didn't count as approaching traffic when overtaking the car in front of him.

Good times. Good times.

The one cool thing I can say about today is that I somehow beat my old speed record coming down a hill into Wiarton. My bike has now traveled over 64km/h while fully loaded. I'll leave it to you to guess where I'm hiding tonight. Think of it like a giant game of where's Waldo. Feel free to comment your entry below and the winner will get a big, sweaty, 5 day unshowered hug... assuming I can muster the strength.

My knees are starting to grind when they move. The pins in my ankle creak with each big push and I've started to feel a nice soreness in a bad place. The right shoulder which was giving me problems long ago can no longer be stretched without sharp, shooting pain. I can never sit quite right, regardless of what I'm sitting on and I don't think I've had a 'proper' bowel movement in weeks. I have 3 or 4 layers of sunburns, and I look like a superhero without his mask because of my glasses tan. When I lean in close on the road, I can feel my thigh muscles gurgle... I don't really know what that means.

Mentally, I likely make my body look pristine. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss people. I freak the hell out of restaurant employees by trying to have in depth conversations with them and likely being a bit too eager to talk. I scream at the wind sometimes, louder than I've ever yelled in my life. I laugh uncontrolably when I finish climbing a hill, only to see an even larger one on the horizon. I stopped saying my mantras, and now sometimes I just make ogre-like noises when I'm having a tough go.

I'm done, but I'm not quite done.