Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

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.