The last week has been especially challenging for me. A few days ago, we had our longest ride day yet, 132kms. Although the day we long, with lots of hills and a very late arrival to our destination at 11pm, ironically, the challenges really began the next day on an easy 30km day.
We had all made it through the longest day of the tour thus far and were in high spirits. We had tackled a challenging day, had an easy day ahead of us and were staying at an amazing artist centre (CESTA) in the city of Tabor. The next day should have been a breeze; we joked that at 30kms, it was practically a day off. 6 kilometres into the ride, however, on a tiny hill, my knee gave way. I continued pedaling up the hill, trying to convince myself that it was fine, but it obviously wasn’t. Perhaps the previous day’s ride was catching up to me, or maybe it a culmination of the over 1000 kms ridden on the tour so far. In any event, it was time to stop riding for a little while.
For the last 4 riding days I have been riding with Phil in our support vehicle, trying to be patient with the fact that I haven’t been able to ride. After taking a few days off, I hope to be riding again the day after tomorrow, our day off in Vienna.
To add to the obstacle of my knee injury, I seem to have come down with a feverish, fluish, illness. After sleeping most of the day, I am feeling a bit better but I have elected to stay in tonight instead of going out on the town with the group.
It has been disappointing trying to come to terms with the fact that there will be a hole in my trip. I try and tell myself that in a 4000km bike tour, to miss 5 days doesn’t mean I will not successfully complete the tour, but it is disappointing nonetheless.
I am crossing my fingers that I will be able to ride with relatively no problems for the rest of the tour. Here’s hoping.
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