This past week the mornings have been the toughest part of the day. You're tired before you even start and the thought of how sore it's going to be when you settled onto your saddle for the first time, knowing how your stiff knees will ache when you begin to begin, and your muscles shout before they warm up, is enough to make you stay in bed. And today was no exception.

The plan for this morning was to get up early and enjoy the pool and the hot-tub before doing our 28 miles (whatever happened to those short rides I was promised?!?!?) but we can't face it. We all feel rough and unwell, it's raining again and we have to negotiate the motorways again to get started, so we stay in bed a few extra hours until we have to get up and get going.

Once you get going though it all changes. You're out in lovely countryside and even if it's raining the freedom & exhilaration of cycling gets you going and by the end of the day you could do many more miles and don't want it to stop. I seem to have really damaged my bike in the fall on the 2nd day, and so cycling is a struggle (especially up any hills which we're surrounded by now) but it's still good fun and once we get going I'm longing for the days of 38 miles again.

But in the mornings you can't imagine you'll ever feel like that again.

Once we set off and get in the swing of things it all gets better. We only have 28 miles to do today and so we go easier on ourselves with stops to pick blackberries and admire alpacas.

The ride didn't take too long and before we knew it we had reached our destination, The Anchor Inn (hence the logo on our desserts), which just a few days ago seemed an impossible feat.

Although we're literally only a few miles from where we need to be, and could get there in a few minutes, we love this pub and its setting so the thought of getting to enjoy it had got us through the planning and every day this week.

It's hard to believe we're actually here and as we spotted the pub sign as we came up the road it looked like a welcoming beacon and a mirage all at the same time. Today we tipped over 200 miles done (206.5 to be precise!) and the joy and disbelief we feel is worth every second of aching knees.

We're here nice and early so get to while away the rest of the day watching the river before an early night ready for our small ride tomorrow.