When we cycle (particularly during the early days when I wasn’t so fit yet), I sometimes feel like a machine, or an engine really. Fuel in—energy out. No fuel in—no energy out. We sleep, we eat, we cycle.
Then, there are also break days: We sleep, we eat, we don’t cycle. Break days are some of my favorite days! Being able to sleep in without wasting the cooler part of the day. Relaxing on a terrace or at a coffee shop, without having to go anywhere or do anything. Just sipping my cappuccino, relaxing my muscles, and simply being. I love break days…
Some of you might have wondered already why I am doing all this cycling if I enjoy NOT cycling so much. And some of you might have thought you’re clever and figured that breaks are, by definition, only breaks because there is this other thing—cycling—that fills our days otherwise. While, yes, this is true, and break days wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable if it wasn’t for all that cycling in between, there are some days even better than break days:
The first cycling days right after break days.
Those are the very best days. When I wake up in the morning not still knocked out from the exhaustion of the previous day but instead awake and ready to jump out of bed, eager to continue cycling and see new places. When I feel the strength in my legs, the wind on my face, and the speed of moving forward. When cycling feels easy and I could go on forever. Those are the very best days!
Now we have seven consecutive break days… Two and a half in Thessaloniki because we arrived one day “too early” (see last post) and the ferry only goes once a week, Sunday evening. Half a day on the ferry to Lemnos, one day taking the ferry from Lemnos to Samothraki, and three days on Samothraki including the ferry to Alexandropolis. How awesome will the first cycling days be after a whole week of break days? (Spoiler: terribly exhausting due to heavy headwinds)
We will see… For now, we are enjoying hippy paradise on Samothraki: the cooler temperature of the island, a free campground in the middle of a forest by the beach, and small rivers flowing down the island’s dominating mountain. We spend two days hiking and climbing up two of those streams, past waterfalls, from one pool to another, higher and higher until we have a stunning pool and waterfall just for ourselves. As the crow flies, it is not far away at all, but it feels like a different universe up here in the gorge.
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