Madrid minus 9 weeks.

[Riazor Blue]

First things first. Andy, you owe me 60€.

Yesterday was a rest day. Livened up with Deportivo's fine win over Juventus. Shame it was only 1-0.

Today I improvised a bit more than usual on the series front. In my Spanish Runner's World there aren't any 5000m series, but I thought that for a marathon, they would be of use. So I had a 3.5 km warm up jog taking me to La Torre De Hercules. The route from here to the Millenium Obelisk (El Pacolito) is 5km if you do three-quarters os a lap of the car park first. The aim was to run the 5Km at half marathon pace. As my last two halves have been mountainous affairs, I wasn't too sure what that pace should be, but settled in the end on around 4'30" per km. I reached the Pacolito in 22'36" so my pacing wasn't bad. I took 2 minutes recovery and headed back to La Torre. The pace was a little out on the way back, finishing in 23'10". Ah well, it was easy enough.

It's hard to judge though, without a measued track to take timings from. I just went on trying to remember how my breathing was in those halves (well, on the flat bits). I have a very basic HRM at home, and that's where it seems to stay. I'm sure that it's technically better to use one, but without those beeps for upper and lower limits, it's not worth using. Even then, I think I'd prefer running 'au naturál' so to speak.

Anyway, after my two 5km's it was a run from La Torre to the Police station, completing about 18Km all told.

I had a bit of bad news yesterday, in the fact that the 9.4km race in Ordenes has been posponed until October. I would like to find somewhere to race between now and the end of March, but there doesn't seem to be much in Galicia during that time. I did see a half marathon near Gijon in Asturias this Sunday, but we are talking about 250km drive to get there, so perhaps not. Next week is an easy week so perhaps I'll just run my own 15Km race next Sunday.

When I run up by La Torre, on the other side of the Ria De La Coruña there is another lighthouse. It's in a place called Meras. It is stuck on a little headland thingy the same as La Torre and I've always thought that it would make a great race. La carrera de los dos faros. I'll have to go and measure up in the car to see how far it is. I'm sure that it could be done as a 10km if one crosses the Ria (a bit like a fjord) at Santa Cristina, or a half marathon if one continues to El Burgo. Hmmmm...

Oh, and Andy, about the 60€..... Yesterday afternoon I was reading your 2002 London Marathon diary and completely forgot the time. I remembered at about 7PM that the car was outside on a meter with a ticket valid up to 5.15 Hence I'm now the proud owner of a 60€ parking fine. If you hadn't made your diary so damned interesting....