Day21 - Maybe let's reign that in a little...

Yesterday was an AWESOME riding day.  I was excited to be in Ontario, thrilled with the terrain and road conditions, and nothing hurt.  I may have gone a little too hard.  :p  Yes, I didn't push on past my goal of Dryden and it was a relatively short day at ~150km - but I think I may have been a little exuberant in my riding, and paid the price for that today.

I woke up tired.  Nothing hurt, but I was definitely not feeling "rested".  Took my time getting going, had a crappy breakfast, and was on the road a few minutes prior to 10:00.  Definitely no "snap" in the legs today.  I was rolling along okay - still making decent time, but it felt like work.  Typically I like to stop for a fuel break at ~2hrs, and hoped to find a gas station or something where I could buy a drink.  Nothing doing.  I settled for a Snickers bar at ~2:30, and figured that I'd make Ignace in ~4/4:30 for lunch. 

The ankle was bothering me slightly but I was still making decent progress.  Certainly not "inspired" riding, but not a slog, either.  I just kept rolling along.  Just outside of Ignace the weather turned cool and I felt a single drop of rain.  "Come on, man - just give me 10min"  I pressed on, pushing a little harder - but I didn't have a hammer to drop even if I had wanted to.  More raindrops.  Still spaced out, but definitely increasing in frequency.  Ignace showed, and I pulled into a little burger shack.  Stashed my bike sort of under the awning, and took a seat outside under the covered patio.  There I met a large family (extended) who were all road tripping from various points in the prairies to a wedding in Thunder Bay.  Lots of kids running around, and one very talkative six year old who came over to tell me all about his little brother.  I ordered a burger, fries & gravy and a chocolate shake, and chatted with the kid while his parents got the rest of the family ready to leave.  The shake was good, the fries & gravy great, but the burger left a lot to be desired.  Oh well - can't win 'em all. 

Back on the road with ~50km to English River and ~100km to Upsala.  I figured I'd make the call at English River depending on how I felt.  I wasn't sure I had 4+ hrs in me, but I figured that I could knock out 50k without too much difficulty.  I rolled along feeling pretty decent, but not great.  I was still pretty tired.  The ankle was annoying but not really painful - but my forearms were starting to tweak a little again.  About 10km out of English River I realized how tired I truly was and made the decision to get off the road.  There's one motel in this town and a general store that was closed.  There was also a park where I could camp, but it was pretty early and I figured I'd get more, and better quality rest inside.  The motel was also really cheap (and surprisingly nice).  They run on EST here even though the official time change isn't until just outside of T-Bay, so an early night and start tomorrow shouldn't be that hard to pull off.  ~190k to Tbay!

Stats:

Total Elapsed Time: 7:40
Actual Ride Time: 6:36
Total Distance: 165.43km
Avg Speed: 25kph
Max Speed: 51.2kph


Lunch - a somewhat sad burger accompanied by great (fresh cut) fries & gravy, and a  kickass chocolate shake:

Ontario wetlands...

English River: