Battleford, the southern part of The Battlefords (across the Battle River to the south of North Battleford, go figure). It is hot. About 30ºC.

I’ve really struggled the past couple days to make mileage. A smidge over 70 miles each both Tuesday and Wednesday. Sitting at a touch over 60 miles today. It’s only 4pm, so I theoretically could bike another three hours and still have time to make camp and eat. That would put me minimally at 90 miles for the day…maybe more with any favorable conditions.

Favorable conditions are:

Strong legs.
Good wind.
Good pavement.
Moderate heat.

Over only one of those do I have any control. The wind, particularly, has not been working for me at all since I’ve been in Alberta or Saskatchewan, excluding Sunday, August 28th when I got a good tailwind out of Hinton to Cynthia, Alberta.

I’ve been eating a lot better on this trip than I did on my Atlanta to Alpine trek. But I’ve found that I need to focus on eating even better. It makes all the difference in the world. By the time I’m on the bike, energy bars, and bananas, and so on aren’t cutting it. It’s what I get in the meals which makes it work.

Here’s what I ate yesterday, more or less, and I feel like it was pretty effective as far as an eating day:

A veggie omelet
Brown toast and honey
Pan fries and ketchup
Coffee
Several bananas
Several blueberry granola bars
A walnut-maple ice cream cone
A half-liter of grapefruit juice
A handful of raisins
A half-liter of 2% milk
A half-liter of V-8 juice
A half-liter of orange juice
A handful of popcorn cabbage (brussel sprouts)
A pair of large carrots
A tin of sardines in mustard sauce
Several spoonfuls of peanut-butter
A package of ramen noodles
A bowl of rice and quinoa in chicken broth with several cloves of garlic
Lots of water

Largest Tomahawk in the World, Cut Knife, Saskatchewan

Consequently, I felt very strong this morning and had 30 miles in within the first two hours. Stopped for lunch at a diner in Cut Knife (home of the World’s Largest Tomahawk), and then slorged against the wind and the heat for the next thirty miles. I should really figure out how to travel at night.

Wait, no, enjoy the heat, Winter is coming.

And screw 90 miles today. I’ve got free internet access, on a reasonably fast computer, with no one waiting behind me (knock on wood), and no apparent time limit. Let’s see if I can catch up on some blog posting.