Week 9.

[Antonio247]

Week 9. 23rd-29th February. My weight remains the same, 81, 2 kg. I´d like to be under 80 for the marathon. It doesn´t look difficult but I should avoid sweet things and eat more fruit and vegetables.

Tuesday. I left at 6.15 am. I crossed the avenue and got to the park where I did a little stretching. Then, I went along the sea front as far as the end of the first part in 16´36´´. I decided to go back a little faster doing it in one minute less. The temperature indicator flashed 11C, which must be 51,8 Farenheit. A little colder than other mornings but all right. ( I asked the Physics teacher how to turn Centigrades into Farenheit and vice versa ). There were no stars in the sky. Then, I continued towards the port where I saw a few Arabs praying in the small mosque next to the café-restaurant. I turned back after km one and finished in 47 minutes and around 7 kilometres. When I was doing some more stretching, I greeted a man who works in a bank where we have an account. He´s a regular early morning runner always with a ribbon in his head. He´s one of those few runners I know who smoke. He´s very thin and quite fast. It´s a pity he can´t give up smoking.

[Antonio247]

Wednesday. I left at 6.15 am. The surface was wet since it had rained the day before and at night. As I had to do 7 miles, I decided to go to Hospital Torrecárdenas as on Monday the previous week. I went along carretera de Sierra Alhamilla, turning right to take the bridge and avenida del Mediterráneo uphill. It started to drizzle when I had done about 2 kms but later it started to rain quite a lot. It was as if I was having a shower and running at the same time. As I was wearing shorts or singlets, as I think they are called, I could feel the rain in my legs. I remembered you running in hard weather conditions. However, as I´m not used to running in the rain, I really enjoyed it for a change. Nevertheless, it is dangerous since I was about to slide and fall down and I stepped on some puddles I hadn´t seen. I got to the hospital and climbed the staircase running and counted seventy-five steps and five landings. When I was going up a man who must have been looking after a patient was coming down. It took me 36´30´´. I stopped to count my heart beats, around 135 and walked down the stairs. The heavy rain continued for about ten more minutes and then it became lighter. The temperature indicator showed 14 celsius -57,2 Farenheit at the indicator near the police station at avenida del Mediterráneo. Then I got to the start point in 72 minutes. I went on to the park towards the port and back for 14 minutes doing in all 86 minutes and around 11,6 kms.

Tomorrow we´re leaving for Barcelona because we´ve got two days off at schools in Andalucía since 28th February is this autonomous community day and we´ve got some things to do there. I´ll meet Manuel, a friend I´ve talked to you about before. He´s already run many marathons and half marathons.He´s training for Barcelona marathon, which is on 21st March. If I could, I´d like to do some training there. I´ll try to send a post from Catalonia.

[Antonio247]

Hello, again, amigos Here I am again. Sorry I haven´t been able to send a post from Barcelona. I tried from the hotel but the internet didn´t work there and I was too busy to look for an internet café. I´ve missed you a lot. Besides, I couldn´t go for a run there. The journey was a bit tiring because we went by car with our son. Last Thursday it was very rainy from Valencia to Barcelona. Fortunately, Manuel- a friend who is from Almería but lives there and has taken part in a lot of marathons was waiting for us at plaza de España and showed us the way to our hotel. Another day, he also took us to Montjuic castle, in a hill he likes going up for a run, where you can have a beautiful view of the city and surroundings. We had dinner at a Galician restaurant where we tried “caldo gallego”, “empanada gallega” and other wonderful dishes as well as red wine. We had a good time in Barcelona although the weather was irregular. It even snowed on Sunday, which is quite unusual so near the seaside but we also had sunny days. We ate a lot of cakes such as “cocas” typical from Catalonia. We arrived back yesterday night a bit tired but looking forward to going on with my training schedule. I´ll try to get back all the training lost.

[Antonio247]

Summary of week 9. I´ve just managed to go running two days because we went to Barcelona for a long weekend. I didn´t do any cross training although we strolled in Barcelona a lot. I expect to do some more training this week. However, I´ve got a little cold which doesn´t help much.

[El Gordo]

You and your cakes, Antonio.

[Sigh...]

What will we do with you....?

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