Oooh that was a tough one! Things did not start out well today: I had another poor sleep, for no particular reason - the accomodation was great, it was quiet, the temperature was perfect, but my brain decided to solve the world’s problems and ust wouldn’t settle down. I recall still being awake at midnight (after putting my head down around 10pm), and with a couple of bathroom breaks through to the 6am wake-up, I did not wake up feeling refreshed. Thankfully, the coffee was strong and free-flowing at breakfast!
A late-ish start today at 8.30am, leaving plenty of time to get ready. The morning temperature was perfect, and our group bounded off enthusiastically from the night’s accomodation. Although I set off at good pace, the group quickly split, with most ahead of me and out of sight within 10 minutes. Perhaps it was the shorter day, perhaps they had a better sleep than me, I don’t know! But I was not tempted to push things any harder than I needed to. We followed a couple of small trails to emerge on the other side of the old town, granting a last opportunity to get a photo across the river. We were then on to small (sealed) roads winding our way across the countryside.
A bit of a change in the scenery today, fewer sunflower fields - although I did notice a lot of the fields had been ploughed-in, so perhaps they’d harvested already.
Into the first aid station at around 10km. By this point I’d realised that I wasn’t going to be moving as well as the last couple of days. My left shoelaces needed loosening (suggesting some swelling in that foot) and my left achilles initially felt like it had given up on life (but that thankfully came good within a km or two from the start). Having been in this situation before - a tired body and a few nights of bad sleep - I decided early on that it was a day for good decisions: no pushing things hard, or trying to chase down those ahead of me down. It meant going around 20s/km slower, but I think a wise choice given the big day we have tomorrow. And it’s been getting warmer by the day (26 today) - having come a cold Perth winter, I’ve definitely been feeling the heat. A little sunburn yesterday didn’t help either.
It’s all a bit of a blur … fields, farms, small villages and three aid stations in total today. I slathered myself in sunscreen at aid two, and hunted down every bit of shade along the way. Plenty of undulation, nothing nasty but steep enough to require moving to a walk.
I had a conversation with a gaggle of geese - who were not happy about me trying to take a photo & video. When I turned around the farm dog was giving me some side-eye too, I think it was ready to tell me off if I bothered the geese any more!
After the final aid station, we had some fairly exposed roads to run along (by this time it was past 1pm, and the sun was blazing), but with about 3km to go dropped onto some single trails the meandered alongside the river as we approached Éguzon. I really enjoyed this bit, although care was required with foot placement in a couple of wet & muddy spots. Looks like a lovely town that clearly draws a lot of water activities.
Tonights accomodation is a recently completed hostel, I’m sharing with JB in an air conditioned room with it’s own ensuite. Fingers crossed I can get a good night’s sleep ahead of tomorrow’s 65km.
Stats for today: 45.40km , 5:36:12, 712m elevation.