Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

In performance terms I'm not sure if I can quite call this my best run of 2011 - a challenging last 20 minutes with fading quads after an hour of almost unbroken downhill raises a bit of a question mark - but as an experience it is no contest.

Broadly speaking this was an out-and-back although with some variations, with the first half mostly uphill, as far as the jumping-off point for some of the national park walking tracks (climbing from 950 to 1450 metres), initially up the main valley and then a side valley. Headed out a bit sooner after breakfast than I would have liked, constrained at one end by the start time of breakfast and at the other by check-out time (which I was to make by 30 seconds, not that I suspect they would have cared); also thought I might have paid for leaving my gloves behind in Switzerland but it was pleasantly invigorating (sunny and probably about -2). Started out on a walking track up the main valley, occasionally rough and slow but enjoyable (and for some reason climbing always feels less steep on a small track). This turned into mountain-goat stuff after about 30 minutes, whereupon I switched to the other side of the main valley, initially on the main road (with good bike lane, seen used by roller-skiers later in the day), then on a vehicle track along the river to the village of Arties. This was to be my turnoff into the side valley, after a false start trying to get out of the village. At the second attempt I got onto the climb properly, not too steep except for one sharp pinch, with more and more stellar scenery unfolding. I was handling the climbing with some comfort, and thought the run had the potential to catch completely alight once the downhill started.

The downhill wasn't quite as good as that but still not bad. I wanted to find an extra 15 minutes somewhere and headed up the main valley again, but there was an electric fence across the track a couple of minutes in - this is cowbell country - so I decided to do the extra in town instead. It was smooth until into the final half-hour; by then the quads were starting to struggle, and were grateful for the few climbs, though the last few minutes climbing back through town felt a bit strange. At that stage I had a new 'friend', which I couldn't do much about because I suspected the dog was monolingual and I don't know what Aranese for 'sit' is.

Things I should have thought of earlier: I'd left my post-run banana (something I'm appreciating while I still can) in the car overnight, and it was frozen.

The rest of the day was going to struggle to live up to that, but was still very enjoyable, taking in a couple of high mountain passes - one 2070m one obviously attracts its share of cyclists because there were signs saying how far there was to go to the top and at what percentage. (I was a bit surprised not to see any road graffiti - either the Vuelta doesn't come this way, road graffiti isn't part of the Spanish cycling culture or the road has been recently resurfaced). The amazingly jagged rock of the Montserrat range near Barcelona (famous for its monastery, but would be something special as a purely natural feature) was a highlight too. The only anxious moment was an instant where I wasn't sure whether a recklessly-overtaking motorcyclist (the only manic driving I saw in Spain) coming out of a hairpin bend in the opposite direction was going to be able to hold it together, and for a moment had visions of the 1997 WOC trials weekend revisited.

Flew back to Geneva in the evening. I was on Easyjet, which doesn't have allocated seats; unless you're travelling with others and want to be sure of getting seats together, what is the point of queueing 30 minutes or more before boarding opens to try to be first onto the plane?

C • Bananas 1

One of the things I occasionally enjoy doing in a foreign country is watch the TV news and try to work out what the story is about. There was one today which, as far as I can tell, featured the mayor of Benidorm being outraged about the less-than-flattering portrayal of his town in a British TV series. It's good to see that it's not only Australian small-town mayors who carry on about this sort of thing.

This wasn't quite the high mountains run I'd originally envisaged, partly through the timing not working out quite as I'd planned, but still not a bad setting for a run, an out-and-back on a quiet back road from the small town of Benabarre, in the Pyrenees foothills at about 800 metres. As is often the way for runs in mountain country, this was almost all uphill for the first half (although never steep after the first couple of minutes), and almost all down in the second half. The setting was nice but the run was a bit of a struggle, particularly on a steeper climb near the turnaround point, then a somewhat indulgent hotel breakfast caught up with me a bit in a form of a stitch on the downhills. Improved in the last 10 minutes. Brilliantly sunny in a Canberra-in-July way (and with a similar temperature).

It was as well that I hadn't planned to do today's run in the high mountains. Although the carpark (beyond which private vehicles can't go) was at about 1400 metres, at least 800 metres below the snowline, the bottom of the valley is in permanent shade at this time of year and had accumulated enough ice from overnight frosts that it would have been unrunnable without spikes - several times I only just stayed upright on a walk up the valley. Beautiful country though, and quite a diverse mountain range, with rounded Australian-style peaks in places and more classically alpine country in others. This excursion into the national park also provided me with two important bits of information which led to a change of Sunday plans - the walk I'd tentatively considered was higher than I thought it was (2200-2400 metres, and on the snowier north side of the range), and the last few kilometres of the route to get there - the bit that shuttle buses do in summer - was a rough track. Having learned a few things in my early years of driving about the capabilities (or lack thereof) of Fiats on any surface more challenging than the Turin-Rome autostrada, I didn't think the hire company would appreciate that.

My destination at the end of the day was the Val d'Aran, something of a geographic oddity in that it's a valley which drains into France - until a tunnel was built, it was inaccessible from the rest of Spain for several months during winter. As an isolated valley it's also kept its own language (which I believe is related to ancient French, although any linguists reading are welcome to correct this). I didn't expect a lot of English to be spoken in a place where English is the fifth language after Aranese, Catalan, Spanish and French, but managed to get by. It wasn't as much of a backwater as I was expecting an out-of-season-ski-town to be - in fact it was quite lively, although they must do things earlier in the mountains because it was a bit of a novelty to enter a restaurant in Spain which wasn't deserted at 8.30. (That said, I get the impression Tortosa's restaurants aren't heavily patronised at any time of the day or night). If you weren't on the ball on the way here you could get very confused; the valley's main town is Vielha in Aranese, Viella in Catalan and Spanish, but (being a bit more sensitive to linguistic minorities) the Catalans use the Aranese name on their road signs - and at one point the road goes in and out of Catalonia three times in as many kilometres.

While on the subject of language, my red-and-black hat (which I didn't end up using) would have caused even more cross-cultural confusion in the Pyrenees than I suggested a few days ago, because in these parts the fire brigade are responsible for mountain rescue.

Nowhere to swim in Tortosa as far as I can tell (other than the river) so this was a rest day; if I'd got to Barcelona earlier I might have considered giving the 1992 Olympic pool a try but I didn't get in until after 9.

Following close of proceedings at the meeting we spent some time down at the Ebro delta; quite often my travels take me to places I'm unlikely to go to again and that is doubly true this time, because most of the ground we were standing on will likely no longer exist in 20 or 30 years' time, thanks partly to sea level rise but mostly to the fact that upstream dams have stopped most of the sediment that replenishes the delta; a 1920s lighthouse is already a couple of kilometres offshore. (Since the delta owes its existence in the first place to upstream deforestation - it was barely there 400 years ago - this isn't quite as unequivocally bad an environmental outcome as it may appear at the first glance, but the area's 50,000 inhabitants probably have other views).

Off to the Pyrenees this weekend before flying back to Geneva Sunday night. Forecast looks good.

Nothing like a bit of information to set up a decent run. You wouldn't expect such information to come in a bar but it did, in the form of a topographic map on the wall of the sports bar where I went to watch Barcelona's Champions League game last night - this revealed that there was a route heading up to the Els Ports national park which looked promising, with only 3km of more substantial road to traverse to get to it.

I thought this was worth a punt and headed out in that direction, and was pleasantly surprised that the main road, while it had some traffic (even at 6.30), also had a decent verge which makes all the difference. Near-continuous gentle to moderate climbing once outside the Tortosa city limits (about 300m in 8k all up), up a steady slope, mostly through farms (and occasionally unnervingly-loud-in-the-dark dogs) but also a bizarre interlude in the form of a monument to the Spanish property bust, a subdivision in the middle of nowhere with new roads and street lights but almost no buildings. As I got closer to the mountains they gradually revealed themselves with the rising sun, as a rocky, scrubby range vaguely reminiscent of the Flinders Ranges. (This also prompted me, possibly slightly unfairly, to think of Tortosa as Port Augusta with more interesting buildings).

Turned around at the national park entrance, the point at which the road turns from steady slope to hors categorie steep (from there it climbs 1100m in 8km). 40 minutes of continuous downhill from there was easy on the engine, not so easy on the muscles - I might pay for this tomorrow - past a mixture of the local equivalent of Bill Jones' Broadcast Australia ute on its way to the masts on top of the mountain and farm cars which were the local equivalent of the Central Australian Kingswoods that the roadworthy inspectors turn a blind eye to as long as they're only driven to Alice and back. Had to work pretty hard on the flat once back in town, with a short detour past the meteorological observatory in the name of getting the time up past 2 hours.

There was also some astronomical excitement in the form of the brightest meteor I can remember seeing, although it fell short of my personal-best for during-run astronomical excitement, the spectacular aurora display one evening in Winchester in March 1989, which turned out to be the furthest south it had been seen since the 1930s. (The solar flare which caused the 1989 event is probably best remembered for knocking out a large part of eastern North America's power grid).

Definitely nice to get out of town properly on a morning which lifted my mood considerably.

Headed north out of town under clear skies (which meant 15 minutes more of light than I was expecting), thinking that the town out that way wasn't that big (and the road didn't go anywhere else much) and that if there was traffic it would be in one direction. I was wrong, which made this a less than pleasant session - was never able to relax at all. Loosened up sort of OK but never felt comfortable.

We had a reception at the council chambers last night which meant we got to find out what makes this place's economy run (not as much as used to be the case - a factory closed last year with the loss of 500 jobs). The old town is interesting enough but I think Daryl Kerrigan has the only possible response to their hopes of a tourism-led recovery.

C • Probably not 1

A longer day at the meeting than expected so didn't get to catch the last of the evening light. I'm struggling to muster much enthusiasm for running in Tortosa at the moment; there would undoubtedly be some great places to go in the hills either east or west of town in other circumstances but heading out in the dark on single-lane mountain roads with non-trivial amounts of traffic is only for those with a death wish. This one ended up exploring just about every pocket of the town itself, including going across the river for the first time, into what is mainly a residential area - some of it normal and a pocket of dark alleys which felt distinctly uncomfortable (and it takes a bit for a place to make me feel that way). A fairly mundane session, and my Achilles is slowly going backwards in the way that it always does when I'm away from home for a long time.

10x1 min (more like 63-64 seconds) in the unpromising surrounds of the university car park, that being the only place above water I could find decent light before sunrise and enough room to run hard for a minute without crossing any round. (Going to the university did provide the opportunity to confirm that by now it did have electricity).

The forecast last night promised atmospheric Armageddon; it seemed overdone (not the first time that an underdone forecast for an extreme event has been followed by an overdone forecast for the next vaguely similar event), and although it was my first wet run of the trip, the rain was only light and didn't cause too much trouble.

The session itself was a bit of a token-gesture speed session, certainly not at the level I was at last week. Blister starting to settle a bit but still annoying.

Warm-up and down from this session, partly contemplating the possibilities of something I'd read before going out, about how in the event of a unilateral Catalan declaration of independence the new state would have no legal obligation to take on any of Spain's debt. That's probably why it won't happen - even if the Spanish government decided to let it go peacefully it's doubtful that the military (the civilian control of which is more tenuous than in most Western democracies - it's only a few years ago that rumours of a rebellion were taken seriously enough for a general to be placed under arrest) would be controllable in such a situation. (The nationalists who did well on Sunday want greater autonomy within Spain, with only a fringe party campaigning for outright independence).

My red and black hat has been known to raise eyebrows in parts of the world not acquainted with the ways of Australian rules football, but should I need to deploy it in the Pyrenees this weekend it may raise eyebrows for other reasons - 'Bombers' is Catalan for 'fire brigade'.

Pretty stiff and sore early on, which was expected (also as expected, the blister was uncomfortable for the first two minutes of the run and all day walking), but got going OK after the first few minutes - certainly not the worst recovery run I've had. Still barely light here when I headed out at 7.20, which is going to be a bit of an issue later in the week (will need to pull out my near-useless-for-illuminating-anything-but-at-least-others-can-see-me headlamp for Thursday, at least). Mostly around the town area although found a small road south of town (after a couple of false starts) which is signposted as a bike route, always a good sign.

The rest of the day was challenging, partly because of the realities of life in a disaster area sinking in - in particular there was no power all day at the university that is hosting the meeting, which makes it rather hard to run a scientific meeting (nowhere to show the Powerpoint slides for a start, except by huddling around someone's laptop and hoping its battery held out long enough). Most impressive sight seen so far in person is the underground car park filled halfway to roof level by mud. The number of locals seen buying 5- and 10-litre water bottles at the supermarket also suggests that I'm not alone in lacking confidence in the quality of the local supply.

And I found myself strangely transfixed last night by election night TV in a language I didn't understand, partly through seeing which rituals are the same as at home and which ones aren't (the cross to the near-deserted function venue of the losing side seems to be common ground between Spain and Australia). As expected, the Socialists lost badly, the (conservative) Popular Party have a solid working majority, and various smaller parties did well (including the Catalan nationalists, who were, I suspect, a popular destination for plague-on-both-your-houses protest votes). I was wondering if Spanish election nights featured lots of horn-blowing by supporters of the winning side or freelance rioting by supporters of the losing one, but if either thing happened it was somewhere other than Tortosa.