Waking up today, knowing that It’s going to rain all day and knowing that 20Km of my planned 80Km is gravel, was not a good feeling. It didn’t make it better when I still feel the pain in my hip from yesterday. 

Late breakfast, waiting for stores to open
I waited until 10:45 before I had breakfast today, since the stores are not open until 12. I needed to buy some food and extra bottles of water, since I won’t see a single store today on my way to Hossa.

20140608_134702Preparing for the rain, gravel roads and mud. It’s not a big issue, since I have good clothes for this, so I won’t be cold.

I can’t see much on the road today. When a car passes me, it takes about 5 seconds before he’s out of my sight, scary…

Putting a smile and laugh on my face helps in hard conditions
I’m using all my motivation techniques today, when the caravans comes towards me, I put on a smile, just so they can see that I’m happy. I guess there’s not so many people outside today, so most likely nobody have heard me screaming out  loud, or in other words, singing really high.

On the way towards Hossa, I considered to stay on the main road for 15km further on, just to skip the gravel roads in this bad weather. I didn’t….

20140608_161750Hello gravel, hello muddy sirup and glue
I turned of the road, knowing that this will be bad. I regret it from the first second. The road (if you can call it that) felt like glue. I felt angry at myself for many km. I was looking back at the trailer, down at my shoe covers and legs, they are all full of dirt. The sounds coming from the bike is the same as a factory of stone crushers.

A friend in Stavanger, Solveig, said something to me one day in a conversation about motivation and ability to reach a goal. She said, I guess goal targeted is a key factor, but you have to have a really good ability to complete your goals to do something like this.

Easy to continue, when you know that you’ve completed in worse conditions before
Today I thought about it while cycling over this sirup, this glue, this dirt and mud… call it whatever you want. I knew that this was not gonna be an issue, I will complete this, sometimes I even started laughing and put on a huge smile. I believe this is one of my main abilities, when it comes to reach my goals, the point that I’m able to put a smile on, even on a hard day or situation.

My hip is not good at all, I really need to get something that can calm this down. Last night I put on voltaren forte gel about 4 times during the night. I’ll continue with this until It get’s better. There’s  nothing else in this area to get for it anyway.

20140608_203214It doesn’t help that all the mud have stopped the gear from working. I’m not able to use the 9 lowest gears, this makes it hard in the climbs.

Paved road, just have to love it!
Finally the gravel road is finished. This must have been a shortcut, since it’s only 35Km left. In other words, this means that I will get 75Km when I’m finished with today’s stage.

The roads are quite flat. It’s a good feeling to know that there will be paved road for the rest of the day.

I called the camping earlier today, so they know I’m coming. At least I thought I called the camping. When I arrived, it seems like the camping is their neighbor.

I told them that I wanted to go down there to check the prices first. Suddenly he switched the price completely. He went from standard price to really cheap. No problem for me, I’m staying.

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Perfect relaxing evening in Hossa after Sauna and a well deserved shower
I’ve spent this evening in the restaurant. Here’s available internet, quite a few people around as well. This is the first time I’ve experienced more French people than Finish people in Finland. Anyway, a nice place by the water. I’ve had a really good shower and also tried out the sauna.

Not to many pictures today, because of the weather.

GPS Data from today’s stage:

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