I started earlier the next morning to beat out the heat, energized and ready to address the gap between myself and my destination. Oviedo to Aviles was BEAUTIFUL and much cooler in temperature. The ride was pleasant and I traipsed through several tiny villages, occasionally stopping just to breathe in the view. I got to Aviles in decent time and decided to aim for a small town about 40km further, giving me a total of 75km that day. I also decided that since the road was essentially parallel to the path, I could choose to skip the trail if I wanted. And I did a few times because it was clear that the trails were not bike friendly, and my calves were still littered with blues and greens. I ended up getting to the small town and for whatever reason, I was unimpressed and kind of turned off. There wasn't even a real reason for it, I just got a weird feeling about the place. I had plenty of time before the sun went down so I decided to head to the next one since it was only 8km further.
It was mostly uphill, but it wasn't as aggressive as the previous day's mountains, so I coasted on the energy of knowing I wasn't too far. I finally made it to the town and asked 2 old men where he Albergue or hostel was. They both started laughing. "25km to the next one, good luck!" Mild despair for a second, but I reasoned that cutting out a day with the train afforded me a night in a hotel if that was all I could find. They suggested a hotel up the road so I kept moving. The inn keeper informed me that sadly, no, the were no open beds. The next hotel was 10km, so I got on my bike, noting my body's insistence that it was quite tired and running low on gas. I listened and gently forged onward, promising a nice glass of wine and a proper meal when I arrived. I tried the next hotel and they too were full. I got a little angsty and shifted down to 2nd gear in my body, slowing down to make it to my destination without overdoing everything. Several winding mountain-y roads later, i stumbled into a cute cliff side bar with an attached hotel room.
The woman who owned it was thrilled and offered me a solo room for half price, and free towels to shower. What a gracious thing. She was warm as a person and spoke no English, but was patient and happy enough to help me sift through the Spanish, which was notably coming to me faster and faster.
After I settled in and showered, I walked across the street to get a glass of wine and make use of the wifi so I could check in with veronica and my parents. I ate the official "menú", which is a daily meal set offered to pilgrims at a discounted rates. A full 3 course meal y'all. It was awesome. I went to bed early, well fed, and grateful for the growing trust between myself and my body. I was listening and still working out the kilometers, and for that I gave a massive thanks. It was a really peaceful day and an encouraging one, because I really did cover some unexpected mileage, and did so NOT at the expense of my own body.
It also made me grateful for the Purposeful Running group back in Boiling Springs. I used to train at a level that was unsustainable for the long term. Part of that was the thought that if I ran faster, the running would end sooner. This had its perks for fitness tests and general conditioning, but it's not a good training model when doing distance stuff. I used to think that if you weren't managing sub-9 minute miles, it wasn't really running. (Cue consequent hernias, y'all) When I ran my first half marathon with the group, I was really against the run-walk method that some people did. It just looked like giving up and I was too prideful for that. But what john, Shana and beth showed me was that running and stopping is actually just as fast as running straight through. They all said the same things before their first half. And what they found was that the walkers ended up passing the running group, and then falling behind when they walk, and running past again, while the running group slogged on. I learned this too after my first race and gratefully adopted it as a training style from that point forward, which benefitted me TREMENDOUSLY on the camino. It's okay to walk the uphill, ya know? I'm not in a place where I feel the need to constantly prove myself; I think when I was in that place, I wasn't proving anything to the world, I was really just trying to prove to myself that naysayers (see: myself) were wrong. Internal monologues can be rough, y'all. But anyways, the point is, I ditched that, and after I got to eat my dinner in celebration, I gave thanks for that too.
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