Despite waking up feeling very hungry, my run went quite well this morning. Strange how sometimes you can run on empty and be fine, but other times it's a very harrowing experience to say the least. There wasn't much to have for breakfast when I got back, but I ate what I had (lentils) and vowed to stop at the next supermarket to stock up.
I found a store after eight k and bought some overpriced German bread for the novelty of it, only to discover that it was crumbly, almost inedible stuff. Still it was all fuel and I ate a whole loaf. Back on the bike, and then about two km into the ride, I sustained a flat in my front tyre. It didn't faze me at all, but I suddenly felt very tired and five km later I hit the wall with a splat. The road went downhill, so I kept moving, but I barely had the energy to turn the pedals over anymore. I needed something.....I wasn't sure what, but something with a lot of sugar and fat appealed to me. Just then, I noticed a sign out of the corner of my eye: 'Cafe y churros' (coffee and churros). Instantly the idea crystalised in my brain, and I just had to have some of that. As if to conspire against me, all of the cafes seemed to be closed. I'd almost given up hope, when just as I was about to leave the town, I saw a cafe, and yes it was open!
A minute later, I had a large cup of coffee and a plate of churros before me. There remained a problem though. The waitress had only given me one sachet of sugar. Did she mean to insult me?! Couldn't she see that a cyclist like me will not be satisfied by one measly sachet!? I demanded (politely) more and she gave me another two. Much better..
It would have to be one of the best moments of touring so far. The combination of perfectly made coffee and churros (not the most aesthetically pleasing I've had, but they tasted pretty good) was like something sent down from heaven. I experimented with dunking the churros in the coffee and was very pleased with the amount of sugar I was able to load on as a result of the sogginess. For once, I didn't stuff the food down, but sat there for ten minutes slowly enjoying it, and feeling the energy flow back into my body.
Setting off again, I felt much better, and was already going a decent pace when an old guy went past on a road bike. Well, well, well, I wasn't going to take that lying down. It must've looked hilarious to any bystanders as I shamelessly drafted off this tiny slip of a man. I could hardly believe I was actually getting any benefit from it, but he was breaking the wind pretty well for me. For about ten kilometres, we rode together until he had to stop for a rendevouz at a cafe. I was charged up now though, and kept going at that same pace, thoroughly enjoying it.
A second puncture (in the back tyre this time) stopped me in my tracks for a while, but didn't detract from my good mood at all. After I'd fixed it, and had a bite to eat, it was back to the breakneck (comparatively) pace and in no time at all, I was in Malaga. There was an incredible tailwind behind me and there was no way I was going to slow down at all, let alone stop and check a map, so I blasted along through the city streets, blindly trusting my instincts. I was going so fast that I entered 'the zone' – a state where time ceases to have meaning, and one's entire consciousness is devoted solely to the task at hand, namely maintaining the fast speed. My thoughts went something like this:
zooooooooooooooooooom; red light, stop; zooooooom; orange light, go go go!; zoooooooooooooom..........watch out for that car turning left!; red light, stop; zoooom (plus a few more iterations of the same); zooooooooooooooooooom; oh no! Autovia!; get off, get off, get off!
My instincts had let me down. I'd forgotten that Malaga is almost completely encircled by autovias and autopistas. Hoping that I'd be able to slip out of the city on back roads, I tried navigating by compass, but pretty soon hit a dead end. It was pretty horrible, the whole back end of the city was an industrial district, which oozed a miasma of pollution and corruption. It really wasn't worth going through the city at all, I wish I'd gone inland a bit instead.
The only option was to take the autovia it seemed. The lovely N-340, which I'd enjoyed taking all the way from Barcelona, had merged with the A-7 to create a monstrous motorway, which was not very fun to ride on at all. The shoulder was tiny and was lined on one side by a rumble strip and on the other by a concrete safety barrier. I wasn't able to relax at all as the cars buzzed past at 100kph, having to focus intently on holding as straight a line as possible (not that easy when you're riding a not very well balanced touring bike!). After five km, I'd had enough and took the next exit, hoping to find another way. I didn't on my own, but I spotted two motorcycle police hanging out under a bridge and they pointed me in the right way.
The route led me through an urbanizacion right on the coast, so I forwent roads completely and rode on a bike path next to the beach. For a while it was very pleasant indeed as I basked in the setting sun. Sadly time pressures forced me back onto the road – a much nicer one than the autovia, but still with a lot of traffic on it. I was actually going about as fast as most of the cars. I'd seen a sign announcing that Marbella was 35km away, and with an hour until sundown, I was a little apprehensive about getting caught on these roads after dark. So it was time for a long, desperate push! I got up out of the saddle on all the climbs, giving it everything I had.
After a while, the 'camio de sentido' that I was on ran out, and I was dumped back on the autovia. Apparently bikes were allowed on it, because although the signs forbidding pedestrians, horses and dogs were up, there wasn't one for cyclists. I still really didn't want to ride on it though, so I took the first exit and looked around for another option. Five km of detouring convinced me that there really wasn't another option. The autovia went right up against the coast, and the buildings on either side didn't seem to be linked by any service roads whatsoever. It really was not a nice place to be if you weren't driving a car.
Oh well, sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and do something really unpleasant. The manager of another campground (expensive and full), which I stumbled upon just as I was about to get on the autovia, told me that the next place along was only seven km down the road, so that strengthened my resolve even more. It wouldn't be fun, but I was going to do it. So with darkness only minutes away, I put my lights on, got on the road and basically sprinted. I thought I was going hard before, but it was nothing compared to this. My average speed was around 35kph, and I pushed so hard up the hills that I was soon well over my anaerobic threshold. The motivation to not slow down was pretty powerful, so I kept going through the pain, just trying to get there as soon as possible.
The guy at the other campsite got my hopes up unfairly. It was a good twelve km away, not seven! Eventually I got there though, and sweaty and smelly, rocked up to the reception and paid for a night.
Surprisingly, I was barely tired after that effort and the 110k that preceded it and had one of the best runs in a while, feeling very strong uphill. It's amazing how my body can cope with this kind of workload day after day, especially when I often run a massive calorie deficit (it's quite hard to eat 6000 kcal in one day I've discovered).
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