Kalininsk to 15km short of Borisglebsk 154km

I woke up at 6:00 this morning but it's a testament to how comfortable I find the tent these days that having got myself up for some biscuits and chocolate spread I then found myself retreating to the sleeping bag for another couple of hours sleep.

When I did finally get out on the road I couldn't find a place to have my usual breakfast of fried eggs and coffee so instead just kept pedalling for the morning and within no time I'd covered 60km. When I arrived at the café though I was in serious need of some grub. It's amazing how the body works and after a plate of meat and vegetables I was like a car fully gassed and ready to go.

I felt awesome on the bike this afternoon, sometimes you feel yourself slumping over the bars, each rotation of the pedals is an effort and your legs feel like led weights. In the afternoon though I rode tall, I actually felt higher up on the bike and my legs pumped like a couple of well oiled pistons. It's a great feeling when you're like this and I picked up some serious pace. I even considered whether it might be possible to do another of those 200km days.

Ideally I need to arrive in Voronezh on Friday night which is when Sergey is off work, pushing it today would probably mean that I'd arrive in the city in the afternoon and might spend a bit of time kicking my heels waiting for him to knock off work. It's really hard to go out and look around the city or even just pop into a supermarket when it's just you and the bike; so instead of going too far I slowed the pace as the evening drew in.

Feed me!

One strange thing did happen today; I passed a sign for the town of 'Anna' as seen here in this picture with the Russian Cyrillic spelling 'AHHA'. I was listening to my Ipod as I approached this sign and had it on shuffle. Rather bizarrely just as I passed the sign the famous eighties classic “The Sun always shines on TV” by Ah ha blared out in my ears......how strange!

I was once again under the road tonight in my now natural habitat.