Day 10 - They Think Its All Over!!!

Woke up this morning feeling pretty achey but more upbeat about things. The worst definitely felt behind us and I felt that after yesterday's horrendous riding conditions and huge mileage it could only get better! We had been promised more rain for today, albeit light rain, but looking out the tent it was just misty. Smothering a tonne of deep heat on my knee once more and dosing up again on ibuprofen, we got going at 6.58am. I was wearing different cycling shoes today as my ones from yesterday were still really wet. Starting off down the road my saddle didn't feel right. It was way too high and was making my hips rock uncomfortably. I figured with the different shoes the height from saddle to foot might be different. We pulled over and lowered it a bit. My knee was really hurting though and so another mile or so I had to stop again and readjust it. I got it to a point where it was ok for my knee, but I started feeling a pulling in my Achilles. This got worse and worse and it felt that I wasn't being able to move my foot properly as I was cycling. I was wearing overshoes due to the threat of rain and these were quite tight over my shoes, so I removed them and tried again. It felt no better and got worse. I tried adjustig my cleats on the bottom of my shoes but nothing made any difference. My Achilles was being stretched really badly and was deteriorating quickly. I lowered my saddle more which made it more bearable for my Achilles, but worse for my knee! I was getting really frustrated. We'd been going for about 2 hours and had only covered 18 miles. We phoned Pete's Dad and arranged for them to come and find us as soon as possible on the A30 where we were heading, so I could get my normal cycling shoes. They said it would be over an hour before they could reach us so we plodded on. We continued along the small country lanes, climbing steep hills and going down narrow bumpy overgrown roads. The A30 couldn't come soon enough! We had changed our route from our previously planned route and had decided to take the A30 for much of the day as it was more direct and would avoid the smaller unpredictable roads/tracks!! So Pete's satnav didn't have a set mapped route to follow and we going more by a traditional paper map! However Pete decided to route us to the A30 using the garmin and it decided to take us towards Exceter down the A3124. When we reached the A30 we found the road we were on didn't actually join the A30 but just crossed over it! We followed a country road which paralleled it hoping it would join further up but it didn't. Soon we
reached a bridge where the road crossed over the A30 and continued alongside it on the other side. Pete had the idea of jumping over the fence at the end of the bridge, wheeling the bikes down the bank and getting onto the A30 that way! After such slow progress on what should be a short day this seemed highly appealing so we threw the bikes over and got down to the barriers, popped the bikes over the barriers and got cycling. We were flying at long last! It was a great smooth road surface and so easy to get a good speed up. It felt great to finally be going at 25mph after the early morning crawl. However it wasn't to last and 10 minutes onto the A30 Pete punctured! Doh! Another frustration! He whipped out the inner tube and stuck a new one in, not bothering to waste time patching the punctured one! We were about half a mile from Okehampton and had covered 23 miles. We phoned Petes folks again to see where they were and they said they were approaching Exceter so wouldn't be long. We woofed down some kitkat chunkies and got pedalling again. My Achilles was getting really dire now. I couldn't keep my foot clipped in to my cleats as it was hurting too much. The next few miles before the support vehicle found us really dragged for me. Each push of the pedals I was willing my comfy shoes to swing by! Soon my wish came true and they hurtled past cheerily tooting us! We caught them at the next layby. Steve gave me my shoes and opened the side door of the van just as one of our precious Magners ciders rolled out and smashed all over the concrete!! Noooo!!! This was not turning into a good morning!! Pete got the floor pump out the van and pumped up his rear tyre properly (the little hand pump couldn't really pump the tyre up hard enough for road riding after the puncture incident). Once my footwear was exchanged we got on our way again. My normal shoes did feel so much better but the damage done already was evident as the pain came creeping back. Luckily the earlier threat of rain seemed a myth as we were bathed in bright sunlight and blue skies! We were greeted into Cornwall by a huge sign at the side of the road and suddenly started seeing lorries flying past for Cornish Clotted Cream. Yep, we'd definitely arrived in Cornwall!! It was a shame my knee and Achilles were hurting so much because aside from that I really enjoyed the days stretch along the A30. It took us over Bodmin Moor where the road swept up and down in huge long hills. You could get such a good speed up on the downhills. I cracked my speed record twice hitting first 41.3 mph and then on the next descent 42.3mph!! I had my tri bars on the bike so I could get down really low in the aero position and absolutely bomb it down!! The uphills weren't too bad either. They were at such a gradient that you could just sit on the bike and steadily twiddle away to get up them. From what we saw of Bodmin Moor it did look beautiful, but I'm sure it would look tonnes better getting off a busy dual carriageway and going right into the moor. We passed Colliford Lake which looked really lovely and we saw another buzzard soaring overhead. Approaching Bodmin I started really struggling with my knee again. The pain had been bearable since the earlier part of the day but was now getting to the agony stage. What was worse is that my achilles was tightening up more and more too. With 15 miles to go I tried to struggle on knowing it was only another hour of pedalling. It got too much though and I had to stop numerous times over the next mile or so, making more adjustments to the saddle to ease the pain. I decided to rest it a little bit so we took a 10 minute break and I walked up and down the lay-by trying to loosen it up a bit. I smothered more deep heat on it too. It hurt to even touch it now. Back on the bike my new seat position was better. It was higher and further forward. I twiddled away up the hills and saved myself on the downhills making the most of the freewheeling. Soon we hit our turning off for Roach and followed the B3274, crossing over the A30 and striking a minor road down through the little village of Belowda. Luckily this minor road was actually a road and not a few bits of stone, concrete, mud and cowpats strew down a path!! It also seemed to go largely downhill so I could just sit and freewheel for the most part which was a blessing! We eventually hit a roundabout and just the otherside was the campsite!! Hurrah! We'd made it!! It was 2pm on the dot and we'd covered 77.96 miles. It had taken us 7 hrs but only 5hrs 20mins of that was cycling - the rest was faffing stops!! We'd averaged 14.7mph. To our relief, camp was all set up and we were greeted with sandwiches, kitkat chunkies and tea. I spotted one of the campsite owners up by the shower block and went to ask her if there was anywhere I could get some ice to put on my knee. She kindly went and got me a proper ice pack so I spent the next half hour lying on the grass with my legs up alternating the pack on my knee and Achilles. There was also a swimming pool on site which was free so we went and made use of that before hitting the showers and drinking more tea! 

Tomorrow is the finale of this mammoth adventure!! We have 47 odd miles to complete down to Lands End. Our newly planned route is to follow the A30 the entire way down taking the most direct route! Im not sure how much more mileage my body will take!! So far we've clocked up 890 miles making our finishing total nearer 940 miles, not the originally planned 920!! Nothing like making life easy for oneself!!