Karen writes: Lacking the party-hard gene

-
5k run this morning, didn’t think I was going to, too tired.  It's meant to be wind-down before the big run on Sunday, but I'm trying to figure out how to keep the legs run-ready, and get used to exercise in the heat, plus manage the practicalities of getting around a strange city without missing out on rest altogether.  I’ve had three runs since I got here, walked a LOT of km to and from the conference venue, and not done a lot of resting.  Ah well, as always, it will be interesting to see how things go on the day.  Perhaps chocolate croissants will be the magic antidote.

Rest.  Not happening.  I now realise that Barcelona is testing me and might finally have found me seriously wanting in the party-hard department.  Saturday night...concert 1 street over until 4am, revelers till daylight, Sunday night...ditto, just fewer revelers.  Monday night...more of the same.  Tuesday night, ahhh...it seems quiet.  Off to bed when I felt sleepy (ok folks, 8pm, still not acclimatised to timezone here but in my defence I’m ready for breakfast at 3am and I really haven’t had a lot of sleep since I left Auckland).  Cue ...another concert, this one classical!  This was nice, then the highlight of the night, 2am FIREWORKS. Wow, what an impressive display from Montuic Hill (a street over that-a-way).  Now here’s something for those with an interest in the physics of things, honeycombed through the apartments are these vertical tunnels, so for example I look out of one of my windows not into the outside world but into the window of another apartment almost in touching distance, this is inside the building. If I crane my neck and look up I can see a one meter patch of sky.  There is a really interesting reverberating effect in these tunnels in response to the aerial explosions.  So I inhaled the gunpowder smoke as it drifted across and listened with tired glee. Boom followed boom, with echo echo echo, all backed by the stirring sounds of classical music, and punctuated by car alarms going off all over the city. 


Someone must have been a busy beaver in the few hours of night left after it all finished, on my run on Monday I couldn’t resist exploring the closed road where the big stage was set up for the concerts, today the stage had gone, there was no sign of the celebrations, it was back to being a very busy road.  That makes this particular snap a little unique in my book.  You wouldn't stop in the middle of this road as it is now, its a roaring river of traffic, you certainly wouldn't zigzag back and forth and stop to take photos. It's one of things I love about running, you take the opportunities as you find them to end up in some unique places.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kate writes: never belive what Camp mother says....

-
"A HAUNTING IN HUNUA" Sunday 9th June 2013, 10:00am start, Hunua Falls car park Yes - Its that time of year that you need to get wet and dirty.  This club event has been designed to have a difficulty rating between "easy peasy to survivalistic". Leg 1: Road Cycle, 30km. May have some flat sections. Leg 2: Run, 9km. Will I stay dry? Leg 3: Mountain Bike, 20km. Pure downhill pleasure. This was the advert for the multi sports club outing. Yes I can do that I thought, no problem.  The road cycle was down and up hills, most of which I had done. That's half the battle when you know you can do it. But it was raining, well actually hailing. I was well prepared, loads of layering of clothing and a hat. So up the hills we went and I made them all. Back to the carpark and a quick change of clothes. Dry ones, even dry socks. I went off with one of the ladies who had an injury to her ankle. It was going to be a good walk.  Over the bridge at Hunua falls and the w
Read more

Karen writes: Life is strange

-
Image
This has not got the remotest thing to do with training for Ironman, but definitely is sports related. The first I'd heard of it was the phonecall from the promoter offering congratulations for the daughter winning "breakfast with the All Blacks".  Turned out the 9 year old had taken advantage of mum being off on her weekend run to enter a competition on the Sunday morning TVNZ kids programme, 'What Now'.  When I heard, I came out of my office perplexed, told the rest of the team, and there were suddenly a whole heap of self-appointed guardians over the age of 21 kindly volunteering to give up their day to go along and help out. I asked some questions when I got home, like "what did you have to do to enter?".  She said "say why I was the All Blacks biggest supporter".  "And what did you say?".   "Um...that I really, really liked them".  "Do you know anything about rugby darling?".  Silence.  Then, "but I rea
Read more

Karen writes: 2 weeks to Taupo

-
Less than 2 weeks to the  Taupo cycle challenge .  The big bikeride with Kate on Friday did lots for my confidence though, 5 really enjoyable hours on the road, circumnavigating the whole of the Hunua ranges and covering 105 spectacular km.  This was the course followed for the SRAM Tour de ranges held in January of each year, or pretty close to it, I forgot the map and relied on the "I'm sure we just keep turning left" style of navigating. It is so much more enjoyable to do these things in company, picture us starting out by climbing the hills out the back of Clevedon until we were way above the tallest power pylons, stopping for a snack and to take in the view. Then plunging along the rollercoaster roads past Hunua, stopping for a snack and to take in a view.  Next racing along the beautiful coastal road at Kaiaua looking towards the Coromandal, stopping for a snack and to take in the view. At last, grinding up winding (hilly) roads through gorgeous bush before Kawaka
Read more