Halbmarathon

Word learnt today: German for Wasp (Easy enough – Waspe)

On Wednesday I saw a brochure at work for a Half Marathon nearby on Sunday. At that stage I was planning on flying to the next job on Sunday, so I went for a run that night to beat myself about missing the race. By Friday, the plans had changed, I would be in the area, but would have to work the Sunday. So I went for a faster run after work to further mourn the missed opportunity.
Saturday night (at 11pm), after working 14 hours and completely failing to carbo-load (salad for dinner doesn’t cut it) I get a call – my colleague thought that the work was going well enough that I could run if I wanted.

So I got up early, jumped on the bike and rode to Altötting – 15km up the road. Luckily the race was scheduled to start at 10:15 (why so late?) so I managed a late entry. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so hot, or a course that was 17km of forest trails – it was pleasant and picturesque though.

I managed to stick to my plan pretty well, for the first half (go out easy, pick it up later). I think I ran low on energy at about km 17 – I just couldn’t go faster! Maybe I should have eaten better, or run less on Friday. It couldn’t have been too bad though, the outcome was roughly the same as my Houston Half time. And I can’t say I’ve been training.

So what’s with the wasps? Just after we left the start and town, we ran on the road for 3km, to get position and pace sorted out. I didn’t realise the rest would be trails, so I was just cruising along, enjoy the run. As soon as the trail started, passing became difficult. But I was just running slightly off the track (when there weren’t trees or mud) to pass people. At one of these (before km 4) a swarm of wasps were upset by something, perhaps it was having a few thousand people rumble past their home. They took a significant dislike to the Australian (I can confidently predict there were no other Aussies there) and tried to turn my head into Swiss cheese. One tried to hide up my shirt and another just wanted to make friends with my shoulder. Shoulder wasp was the dummy – he didn’t do any damage, but he was the only one I actually saw. I can only deduce the others existence by the lumps on my head and back and the pain. Man, it hurts. And I was slightly worried when my vision blurred and I started seeing big white blotches, but I kept running and my vision cleared (well, as clear as normal for running). The pain stayed until I found drugs much later (the first aid people tried to help, but their magic cream didn’t do much).

A pity really, having a massively sore head didn’t do much for the post race enjoyment. I don’t think I’ll be running too many Bavarian half marathons, so I wanted to enjoy it. Luckily I had a quick look around the (pilgrimage) town of Altötting before the start. I did hang around for a massage (never managed that before!), and a second stint in the medical tent, mainly to make sure I wasn’t going to develope a reaction to the wasp stings – before riding back to Burghausen, getting a subway and riding into to work.

Now I’m buggered. I suspect I’ll sleep tonight. I even took the elevator to the second floor. And had desert (mmm, Apfel Strudel… with Vanilla sauce… Specki!). AND took drugs for my sore head.

Aus in the news

You can go for months in Europe and forget that Australia still exists. Apart from mentions about the Ashes (and anything else to do with sport, except soccer).

But we hit the big time with two stories today: one, how inhumane we are being in slaughtering some camels, and two how the senate rejected an emissions bill. That article goes on to say “Australia has the highest per capita emissions in the developed world and coal is its biggest export”.

re the camels, how about instead of shooting them, we find a bug somewhere that makes them infertile – much more humane. This bug, of course will have no side effects, a la cane toads, cats, rabbits… But about the emissions, I was about to make some smart arsed remark, but a while with my friend the internet, and err, that is correct. Coal being our biggest export is not surprising, but we have the highest per capita emissions in the world (developed, or developing from what I can see). Mainly from cars (in the cities), electricity generation/usage, and the aluminium smelting industry. A few years old, but interesting reading.

I’m going to have to put my high horse and halo away for a few days.

But there was nothing at all about the birth of Kev and Catherine’s newest, Sam. So I’ll help out the rest of the world by reporting it here. Congrats guys, hope you’re home soon!

3 countries, 2 days.

On Friday afternoon I decided to go for a weekend ride. So I spent a little while looking at google map, and thought riding to Andorra would be possible. Then I went out to watch the magic / dancing fountain in the city and failed to pack to leave. So instead I worked all day Saturday.

It is not all bad news, because I took Monday off instead. I still had two days, and I thought I would need them – the route I had drawn went up into Andorra, and was more than 200km long. Ambitious, maybe, but I figured if it all fell apart I could take another day without any drama. I also noticed that my route would go past a tiny village called Urtx, and this rang a bell, because I remembered I had met someone who lived there many years ago. I actually noticed this about 10pm Saturday, and fired of an email in the hopes that they might get it before I got to Urtx.

We are men, men in tights

So I caught the train to Ripoll, to skip some of the bits between the coast and the mountains. Normally not so exciting, except due to railway construction, the departure station had changed, but once I worked out that it wasn’t a big deal. I had my bike after all. I met three local cyclists on the train, Nico, Josep-Maria and … (my memory sucks). They were off for a vuelta in the mountains as well, maybe a bit shorter though. They told me there could be rain. I hadn’t bothered to check, because: 1. It is the mountains, you can get anything, anytime; 2. it has been beautiful and warm in Barcelona for months; 3. I was going anyway. Rain, pah! You don’t scare me

After coffee (obligatory), and a photo, we headed north, together for a few km. Then I was alone, and charged up the first pass. I love the feeling of flying up a hill. Sure it takes effort, but it feels great (I also like it on the motorbike, much much less effort, but it still feels great). On the bike 25-30km/h is flying. This pass was only at 1800m (I started at 800m), so (Adelaide alert) kind of like climbing lofty. In the Pyrenees, with mountains all around. Ok, nothing like anything in Australia, but it was 1000m up. It had already started raining, but it stopped and started and wasn’t too bad.

I then raced down in to the valley, and stopped into Urtx. The village is lovely! (as are many of them in northern Catalonia). My friend hadn’t rung or texted. No matter, filled my water bottles at the village water tap (there’s an essay on that alone), and headed off to Puigcerda. Right on the border with France. Crossed into France. Now that the borders are effectively uncontrolled, the excitement of changing countries has diminished. The most obvious difference is the number plates on the cars, and the language if you try to talk (difficult while riding uphill ). So I had some lunch, found a sign pointing at Andorra, and started off. I knew there was a bit of hill coming, so was a bit nervous when the massive clouds and thunderstorm around, and occasionally overhead.

Trundelling up the hill. Crunch, crunch, bang. Something behind me. I turn around to see a car rather gently settle onto it’s roof. Somehow this guy had (going uphill) run off the road and hit a massive rock. Kind of like driving into a brick wall, only there is no give in the rock. Only 30m behind me. (that’s the second time this has happened to me; please, please don’t fall off the road any closer!) So, I and others had to get the bodies out. Luckily the bodies could get themselves out after we got the door open. Amazingly there was only a sore head and a cut foot. Considering the amount of stuff spread around the inside of the car, including heavy stuff like tools, I think they were extremely lucky. Although this probably wont be one of their favourite holiday memories.

So, while I was waiting an eternity (43m according to my bike computer…)  for the circus that is the police, fire and ambulance to arrive at any crash scene, my friend from Urtx rang and texted. Only I was 30m from my bike and didn’t hear a thing. Bugger (found out at 10:30 at night). Also frustrating was the light was fading (due to the clouds from the storm), the approaching sunset and the mountains around. I thought there was no chance of making Andorra, and neither did the very friendly English speaking French policeman (one never thinks those four words would go together, but they do – in this case). But I can try, right?

So off to the next pass, after passing the campground that the aforementioned policeman suggested I stay at. Afterward I realised that this was the last campground for quite some time. In the rain. Occasional hail. A few flakes of snow (no idea what they were doing, it was far too warm for that – maybe they were hail that wanted to be snow). This pass was only 1900m, but steeper than the first, and from the crash site only took 50min. I felt like now would be a great time to find a campsite. And just on the other side of the pass I felt this even stronger, as I rode into the cloud. Somehow it was still raining. So I started looking around for a campsite (this was 7pm, in the mountains in the dying light). Well, there were none. So on I go. I didn’t realise there was another pass of over 2400m coming up. So with no-where to camp I rode past the line of traffic entering France from Andorra, no doubt full of duty free stuff. I got some startled looks and a few words of encouragement. I must have looked a little odd.

The only way is down!

They let me into Andorra. No controls at all (there are controls going out). I guess they figure to get here you have to come from France or Spain, and you will return to France or Spain, so why should they care? Still nowhere to camp. From my dim memory of my last trip, I remembered the town at the border wasn’t far from the pass before going down, down, down. And it isn’t – by motorcycle. The only good news is I was heading East, and so after getting over the top managed to gain a few more minutes of light. It was cold, cloudy, raining (I was pretty well soaked by now). I wanted to stop, but experience tells me that to get over the top and as far down as possible is a good idea (camping on top of anything in a thunderstorm is a good recipe for a bad night). Oh, have I mentioned often enough the massive thunderstorm I had raging around me? I was still having fun.

And then the down… I couldn’t fully enjoy it because of the water on the road, but going down 900m on pretty good road, fast, was fun. It also meant I was getting close to a place to sleep. And my brakes were wearing out. When I saw a sign for campsite I pulled them both on, brake levers hit the handlebars and I slowly sailed past the turn off. I stopped eventually, but it was, err, exciting from then on (I continued to the next campsite, the first was up a side road and I was still looking for a quiet place by the road to camp, which is foolish in Andorra, it is completely impossible). It is impossible to camp outside a campground, because, for the most part Andorra is about 50m wide. A cliff, a river, a road, a house and another cliff. Plenty of the landscape is flat – but also inconveniently vertical.

This is getting slightly longer than I planned.

I found a campsite. Dripped my way into the shower. Finally stopped shivering. Slept like a log. I’d only managed 120km, but had to do 2500m climbing.

The return trip was more enjoyable. Downhill nearly all day, with an unreliable tailwind. The morning was clear, beautiful blue sky, so I got to see some of Andorra. The afternoon in the mountains (from what I could see) looked like a repeat performance of yesterday. I was a bit surprised to get so much bad weather in August. But it is the mountains.

I had promised myself a downhill day, and for the most part the road delivered. Until I turned left toward Solsona. The map showed this was the shortest way, but the signs to Barcelona all pointed down the road toward Lleida. A short-cut! I should have been immediately suspitious. It has been some time since I’ve got off to push a bike up a hill. Even in the Andes on terrible roads I managed to ride nearly everywhere, but I had to here. Luckily the range wasn’t so high. Also, in my defense I was babying my bike, I managed to snap a spoke coming down from Andorra. On the rear wheel of course, on the driving side. I didn’t have the tools to change it so just rode on. I wonder what it is with me and spokes. Other people ride thousands of km and never have any trouble – in my years of racing MTB, I snapped one. But get me on a touring bike, and PING, there goes another one. I’d better just always carry the right tools.

That’s it really. Pleasant ride in the searing heat (Spain in August = Hot) back toward Barcelona. I was going to ride all the way, but couldn’t find a way out of Manresa that didn’t involve a motorway. Found the train station before a road going the right way. After discussing the traffic intensity between Manresa and Barcelona with the (train) Station Master, decided the train was a good option. And I was buggered (shhh, don’t tell anyone).

2 days: 275km. Moving time 12:25. Elevation gain: 3390m.

Next weekend: Sleep. Lay on the beach. Do something about my cyclist tan lines.

Spanish wiring

I had an electifying experience yesterday while shaving. I don’t even use an electric razor.

Running some water, had one hand on the tap. Thought the light near the mirror was pointing the wrong way, reached out to move it and the house went dark. I ended up on my kness – it turns out the house has a safety switch, or Earth leakage circuit breaker, whatever you call it, but you still get a fairly substantial boot! (maybe it’s not working 100%…) My shock was straight across my chest, which was a worry for a few seconds, until I worked out that my heart was still beating.

And beating had been earlier. Since buying the bike, I’m riding a lot more, but have hardly run anywhere. I decided to go yesterday. I think my computer was being kind to me, it told me I did 10km at 5min/km, and I felt like I was just cruising. Maybe it doesn’t work so well in the city with all the buildings around.

Barcelona have a Marathon. In March. So far each time I’ve started training for a marathon I end up smashed up an Achilles tendon. Maybe it’s time to make myself unable to walk again. 6 months 30 days of training. Yay or nay…

Maidens

I wonder why everyone thinks your mother’s maiden name is as secure as a password.

Hypocondriact

The last few weeks I’ve been exposed to more brain cancer than I really want to know about (parents of people I know in Europe). I’ve also noticed that I’ve had pins-and-needles in my left hand for two days, and my leg just went all tingly. Now, I know it is due to either riding too much on the weekend (it was great to get back into the sun!), sleeping wrong, or this desk which is far too high for the chair. It must be. Mustn’t it?