Day 15: Mansfield, OH to Marysville, OH Total Distance: 73.2 mi Moving Avg: 10.4 mph Moving Time: 7:01 Another uneventful day. The usual late start, but slightly better than average. I was actually rolling by 11am. I have finally reached the mid-west. It is flat and full of corn. I discovered I can go faster on flat ground than I though. I was averaging 12-14mph on the truly flat sections. Unfortunatly, the last 20 miles of today had a really strong head wind which slowed me down a bunch and dropped my average speed. But still, not a bad speed. Hopefully I can bring the avg moving speed up for the next couple weeks to make up some ground before the Rockies. The last few days have been pretty good pain wise too. My knees are feeling fine for the most part. They occasionally twinge when I do something dumb, but I haven't need painkillers since the rest day (execpt for a headache a few days ago). My stomach is too small. At the end of the day, I want a really big meal, but I get full before I've had enough to eat. This leads to either me still being hungry and annoyed, or me getting horrific stomach cramps. I know the solution is to eat more often, but it is hard to convince myself to stop moving sometimes. I just keep going, despite knowing intellectually that I should stop. One thing I had hope would happen on this trip (and there is still time) is a better reconsiling of my intellectual knowledge and my actions. This is sometimes known as self control, although that doesn't quite have the same connotation as what I mean. Self control is something that I have historically lacked (I blame my father [hi Dad =)]). I'm staying in a Holiday Inn Express, and they have free bandwidth, so there will be a webpage update tonight. The bandwidth is free, but lodging is really expensive. I spent 30min trying to find something reasonably priced in the area, but there really wasn't anything. Perhaps I should try to master the art of sleeping in a ditch by the side of the road. I'm not sure if there is really much to be mastered, maybe just the art of not getting arrested while doing so.