Feeling like I hadn't gotten my money's worth from the hotel (after all I hadn't slept one bit!), I decided to really go for the buffet breakfast. With an animalistic glint in my eye, I made toast, poured myself cereal, juice and coffee, took several pieces of fruit for later, and generally took advantage of it. There came a point when I thought my stomach couldn't take any more and I was going to explode all over the place, leaving a viscera coated dining room for the cleaning staff to remember me by, but a voice inside my head said “Come on Jeremy, you can do it. Just screw them out of one more euro. Eat some more bread.” And since the voices are usually sensible, I did just that and scoffed down another three rolls. It was disgusting how much I ate. Getting back up the stairs was not fun, and I could barely do up my cycling jacket, my belly was so bloated.
Still, I'd definitely fuelled myself up for the day's riding. By the time I'd finished the 95k we had planned, the meal would've only just finished digesting. If it weren't for the supreme discomfort I was feeling, I'd have thought that it was an inspired idea and one that I should follow every morning.
We left at quite a good time at around 10:40, and were surprised to find the roads almost completely bereft of any traffic. Everyone must be recovering from New Year's Eve or something. There were no shops open at all, so it really was quite clever of me to have eaten such a big breakfast. Chances were we wouldn't be able to find any food at all.
With another nice day of weather, and flat terrain on the N-340, the kms seemed to tick over very quickly. Luke wanted me to teach him some French grammar (he and I are both grammar geeks), and by the time I'd gotten to explaining reflexive pronouns, we'd already done 48km. I was feeling quite comfortable by that point. The stitch I'd been trying to ignore the whole time had starting to disappear, and my gut no longer hung over the handlebars and interfered with the steering. Luke on the other hand, was experiencing what we in the industry call a bad 'bonk'. For the uninitiated, this refers to a state where you have exhausted most of your body's supplies of glycogen, its principle source of fuel for endurance events like cycling. This forces you to slow down dramatically and you feel like rubbish without really knowing why. The exercise suppresses your appetite, so you don't even realise you should be eating more. He'd barely eaten anything the night before, and while he'd eaten quite a bit for breakfast, it was nowhere near as much as I'd had. I gave him all the fruit I'd taken and what bread we had left and together we took a rest on the metal crash barrier until he was done.
A bit of fruit and a tiny bit of bread weren't going to last him the remaining 50km though, and I knew we needed to find him something else to eat. Literally every single shop was closed though, even the service stations, so we couldn't even buy some expensive junk. The many orchards of orange trees on the side of the road looked very tempting, but I'd drunk a lot of orange juice for breakfast and was a tiny bit afraid of a farmer coming out with his shotgun to deal with two orange thieves, so we ignored them and kept on going. Luke came good for a while, and we were able to match pace up until we stopped in a town and eventually found a bar that could sell us chips for lots of money (comparatively anyway). After that, he kept on falling back, not able to hold the silly pace I was setting (there was no rush, but it felt good:P).
Still, we reached the 90k mark without any problems and it relieved me to think that we only had 5k to go. But at that point, the N-340 suddenly became a terrible road for cyclists. Previous to that, there was always a wide shoulder and drivers would always pass respectfully. Here though, the shoulder disappeared and the drivers went beserk. One guy passed me so close I nearly lost control! I was feeling really strong and really enjoying the ride up to that point, but this was not much fun!
Both of us were very glad when we saw the turnoff for Benicasim and could get off the crazy road. Reaching the 100k mark for the second day in a row seemed to release some hidden store of endorphines because I suddenly felt incredibly exuberent:D We soon found the camping ground we were looking for and I had the pleasure of being able to put up my tent in daylight for the first time this trip. Sure makes it easier! The run tonight on the beach (with shoes this time!) just before sunset was marvelous. What a great day:)
I am having a really, really great time on this trip right now. Southern Spain is definitely the place to be in Winter:)
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