Barcelona

Barcelona is memorable to me for many reasons, first of all it was the location of my first marathon and second for one of the maddest weekends I've ever had!

Most of the events cannot actually be put in a blog that my parents and family might read, so unfortunately I'll have to stick to the "family safe" stories.

I've already mentioned the marathon and the (truly amazing) Sagrada Familia. So I think I'll start with the morning after the marathon, as you can imagine my legs were pretty sore and did not want to do much walking. So guess what we decided to do? Yeah, we went to the Nou Camp! What a place though, was well worth the agony of getting up and down the stairs!

Me and the Nou Camp "More than a Club"

I enjoyed reading the history of the famous Barcelona club, but for one massive oversight, they didn't even mention the legend Sir Bobby Robson who managed for one season and won 3 trophies! Nonetheless it was a very impressive stadium, with such a trophy room as to be the envy of every club in Europe! (Especially my club, Newcastle who now haven't won a trophy in 43 years!)

This is a panorama shot I took of Barcelona's 6 trophies from the 08-09 season, with Erik and Jamie

If you've done the Nou Camp tour yourself then you will know how many steps yo have to go up and down, and my knee was killing me! It was worth it though and I'm glad I did it, I don't know which is my favourite out of the Nou Camp and the Santiago Bernabeu, but my Spanish team is Real Madrid so I guess the Bernabeu.

The next stop was to go back to the hotel room and get changed to go out for a meal. Instead we found a Tapas place that I will never forget! Their offer was one beer and one Tapas stick for 3€, so Erik suggested we have one then go get changed to go out. We ended up having 7! That was Erik's idea too.

Erik and Jamie in our favourite tapas place

It was only 7 PM, so we still had plenty of time to go to a restaurant, so we eventually made it back to the hotel. I was absolutely shattered though and a little bit drunk, so I decided to get a power nap, people in Barcelona don't go out till 10 anyway. The next thing I knew it was 4 AM. It was the best nights sleep I've ever had.

That day we went to the Sagrada Familia, an amazing place that warranted its own blog post (LINK).

After that Erik and I went to the seaside, there was a man made wharf that had a shopping centre on it, it had a bar/restaurant that served maß beer!

After two of those maß beers the madness began. It is definitely not a family friendly story, but we ended up walking up and down the famous La Rambla street looking for "buenos chicas". That was when my phone got stolen. What a crazy night.

We went out drinking with our marathon winners medals, so proud we had to show them off!

Me and Jamie snogging our medals

I want to thank Erik especially for convincing me to run the marathon and give me an excuse to visit this amazing place, also thanks to Dave and Jamie for making it such a memorable trip!

Viel Spaß homies!

Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia is probably the most amazing building I have ever seen. The scope of imagination it would take just to even plan one of the spires is absolutely mind boggling!

They originally thought that it would take a few hundred years to complete the church, but thanks to modern technology and construction techniques it is estimated to be completed around 2026, 100 years after the Architect Antoni Gaudi died. The guy managed to envisage this building, and build this scale model of it:

Now I am not a Christian, but being in and around this masterpiece gave me a new sense of belief about the power and creativity of man. Everyone should visit it and see what I mean. I will definitely come back to see it when it is finished.

One picture, or even a hundred could not describe all the unique details in the exterior or the extravagant beauty of the interior, but I had a go. Check out my album in the link below:

https://plus.google.com/photos/116611446148642353119/albums/5727824403845464801

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon #1 (Barcelona)

So my first marathon has been successfully completed!

Today I ran the Barcelona Marathon in 5 hours 5 minutes. My knees and quads are in absolute agony right now, but the sense of achievement is astonishing. To be honest, considering how poor and interrupted my preparation was I am happy that I just managed to finish it. Next time I will aim to substantially improve my time and hopefully completely avoid having to walk.

I ran it with my friend Erik from eriksmarathon and 2 of his friends. The first half marathon 3 of us basically stuck together, which was nice as we got to see the Nou Camp and the Sagrada Família together, but the pace we were running wasn't exactly ideal for my race strategy and I ended up dropping back just before the half was completed and couldn't catch up either.

The last 10k was very tough, as my knees were burning, so I had to walk at least half of the time of that distance.Given that the most I had trained was 19 miles (31k) and that was intervals with walking and running I am pretty pleased with that I could complete it, and hope that the next one goes a lot smoother on the knees!

The pic at the top is the 4 of us at the finish line showing off our medals and our pecs, below is a closeup of the medal.

It was a good day so far, but now I need to leave and have a celebratory beer and stuff! :)

A full blog about Barcelona will appear soon.

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: 6-week sitrep

So far I have mostly been posting about my plans and very little on the progress that I have actually made, so here is an update.

6 weeks is a long time when it comes to training plans and quite a lot has happened, but thankfully it was largely uneventful progress. There was one week where I was set back with a sprained ankle, which meant I had to skip one long run. Believe it or not the ankle sprain was not when I was out on a run, or playing football or anything like that, it was running for the bus! So another run-in with a bus got me injured. What am I like eh?

In total I have ran 95.5 miles in these 6 weeks, with the longest one of these being yesterday, a 12 miler completed in 1:57:56. I am very pleased because I managed to keep up a good pace the entire run and also have enough energy for a fast finish. Take a look at the split times (time to complete each mile):

The last 3 miles were my fastest ones, this demonstrates a big change in my running gestalt, where previously I would run to fast too early and not be able to make it through the difficult endurance periods. Now even for long distances I can moderate my energy expenditure better and pay attention to what my heart rate is telling me for a much better long distance running style.

In this time my motivation and determination have not wavered, and every week after my long run I get more and more confident that I can complete the marathon next March.

My message to my readers is that our bodies limitations are only set by your mind, which you yourself have complete control over. If you have a target or a goal for something believe in yourself and anything is possible.

Viel Spaß homies!

Marathon Mini Series: Why?

I had just finished writing a blog called "My post-Oktoberfest, one handed workout plan", it was full of a good mix of workouts I can do for the next 5 weeks or so that I can't use my left hand much. I was psyched to start up training again after the debauchery of Oktoberfest. I was just about to publish it when my friend Erik Orrgarde signed up for the Barcelona marathon.

He asked if I wanted to join, I immediately said no, because it was crazy. But I got thinking, how crazy is it? Regular follower of the blog will know that it is on my 20's bucket list to do a marathon, so it needs to be done at some point, why wait? Well, there are many reasons why not to run it, and only one reason to do it. That reason can't even be explained. I don't even understand it, but it's there. Other runners will understand, if someone can put it into words post it in the comments!

So Erik convinced me to do the Barcelona marathon, which is in 6 months from now (Sunday 25th March). I'll be starting a mini-series of the blog so if you wish you can keep up with my progress. Wish me luck!

Viel Spaß homies!