Day Eight - Luçon - Western France

Today marks my first week on the road. I have cycled seven of the last eight days and covered, approximately, 220 miles. Not a great distance by any standards but I'm about where I thought I would be - ready to take a few days off on the Ile De Ré.

I have gotten used to riding the loaded bike, my legs are a bit stronger and my heart has stopped trying to beat through my chest when I'm trying to sleep, as it did in for the first four or five days, perhaps indicating that it, like me, is relaxing a bit now.

Mornings are still the worst times, though, as I continue to have uncontrollable, subconscious feelings of fear and sickness. Not fear though, really, because I'm not scared - not consciously - but whatever I eat or however I think I feel slightly sick and my legs feel weak for those first few hours in the morning before I leave. This soon passes after a few miles on the road and I again begin to look forward, if only to a cold beer and a warm bed that evening. If this morning feeling is going to pass I cannot see it doing so soon, but it is something I think I am learning to live with.

The task ahead remains a daunting one to me but I have resolved to take each day at a time. Although, when my mind inevitably wanders beyond France, and Spain, and Western Europe and into the next who-knows-how-many months, I have yet to properly relish in that feeling of 'challenge'. But I will, in time.