A day that started well, and ended up featuring in my top five most painful sporting endeavours*.
After a surprisingly good sleep and no cut throats, we left the hostel of craziness early. At 7, our booked breakfast time, no landlady was in sight (last seen knocking back the wine) so we hit the road on an empty stomach but with the promise of a good stop 10k in.
The first 10k really were beautiful, a drier, scrubbier landscape with lots of little ups and downs, and the full(ish) moon setting as the sun rose.
At Viana we breakfasted well and pushed on towards Logrono, a big city and the capital of La Rioja.
Now the first error was that I commented how my feet had definitely turned the corner and felt much better than previous days. The second was stopping for lunch and taking off my shoe to do some (I thought) preventative surgery. I'm not sure exactly what has gone wrong but suddenly my shoes seem several sizes too small...
Let's just say the three hours on from Logrono won't feature at all in my photos. I felt nauseous with pain at one point and it took a whole of the This American Life podcast to get me through. For the record I think it was 33.3 k total.
We're in a private room tonight. I'm not sure I'm going to be leaving it any time soon.
*which makes me worry that previous records may fall on this trip... Though hopefully not the Thames Path challenge or Finnish cross country skiing ones. Cos if so I won't be getting up the next day.
End of day 7. Having finally got around to reading your blog I feel like I'm right there with you. I love how there's this haze in all of your photos that I always associate with places like Spain and Italy, something about the angle of the sun further south may be? I had my own slog today. Back and forward to Birmingham in a day! I'm now completely converted to the HS2 cause!! I'm surprised that your feet are playing up but that's what did me in those last 20k on the Thames path challenge, the foot swell! I'm sure it will get better soon. Missing you loads Anna
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