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.

Preparing 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….

Hello 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.

It 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.

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: