Blood, sweat and… well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Today stared well as we had some bananas to go with breakfast. That may well have been the high point, as today was the day that my left knee woke up and realised what I’ve been up to for the last couple of days. In response it embarked upon a steady protest of declining function to the low point at which I could start indulging dramatic fantasies of never walking without a stick again (there’s quite a lot of time for your mind to wander when on a bike). I’d like to attribute this to an old recurrent injury from my rugby days, or that stint I did with the Teritorial Army – but we all know I can’t. This niggling ache, that grew to become my not being able to put any weight on my left leg is very simply due to my not being very fit, not knowing anything significant about serious stretching requirements and basically, not being very smart. If I was, I’d have just sponsored one of the other participants and felt a warm glow about having done my bit. As it turns out, things are rarely as dramatic as I like to believe and so, having undergone some intensive stretching at every available stop point, I got to the end of today’s 75ish kilometres and can walk without an aid. Other than scuppering my plans for a re-enactment of the death scene from La Traviata, this seems like a good result.
So what else?
- Cows. We’ve had cows from the start, but not like this. At one time were weaving through a heard of them being taken down the road. That brings your focus back. There’s a video clip of this on the Bike 4 Cambodia Facebook page.
- The “Hello, hello’s” were less intense today, but still on a rolling boil with another 1 or 2% of the population having now received the official greeting.
- We generally kept a good pace and had relatively good roads, which was a mercy with my knee as it was, but what about the rest of it? The mud! The last few days have seen me accumulate muck in greater quantities than Glastonbury 2007.
- EVERYTHING aches. Hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, back, thighs, calves and yes, you were all right, arse. I can only imagine what condition I would be in had a lesser pair of shorts been purchased.
- The knee thing has led to a couple of hairy moments related to unclipping my shoes again, with one slow motion fall as I failed to kick free by being too tentative in an effort to not pull my knee further. This obviously backfired as hitting the ground wasn’t a massive help in limb protection. On the plus side the couple of rugged, action hero type grazes I sustained as a result meant I got to try out the benefits of Iodine solution on an open wound, courtesy of our resident Cambodian doctor.
- Blood spill: 2
- Sweat: A baking hot day. Clear skies gave full reign to a searing sun throughout.
- Tears: See future blog posts.
- Fall count: 1
- Days without a cup of tea: 4. I’m not being difficult, it doesn’t have to be Twinings. (Admittedly the coffee here is pretty great.)
- Funometer: Low. Next time Ola has a smart idea to help people less fortunate than ourselves, he can damned well keep it to himself.
It was my turn for the end of day motivational speech, check out the video here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200292568778154
Ps. For all that can remember as far back as pre-cycling my finger that got ‘shanked’ in Hackney is healing well.
Note: I’m not putting in much in these blogs about where we’ve been etc, as it’s well covered in the other blogs and the number of people for whom it would be of interest are quite limited. To be totally honest, I rarely know where I am much of the time at the moment!
Thanks to latest round of donors! Please spread the word and if you haven’t but intend to donate, do it now if you can! The more we raise the more chance I have of coming to terms with my continued existence. If this goes much further I’ll feel like Jeff Goldblum at the end the The Fly.
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