track fan

1:54:46

Pretty challenging uphill climb to get to the trails (but at sea level so easier than most of my runs in SLC).  The main trails are a little rocky, but pretty level (compared to runs like the Dry Creek trail) and wide - almost like roads (ones you would take cars other than your own on ;-) ). Beautiful!!  No matter what trail I chose I would run into some old (I mean pretty old, somewhere between 10th - 18th century) farmhouse or other ruin.  It was so fun I could not stop running, because I knew that just down the hill or around the mountain there would be something else to see!  I ran down to a pretty famous place called St. Baldirini that was a "county seat" from about 10th - 13th century.  The guidebook I got from the woman who owns our apartment was in Catalan so I can only understand about every 6th word or so (Catalan is a mixture of Spanish and French but just different enough from both to be difficult even if you are fluent in either of those languages, which I am not) - but I could find the dates and get a general drift of what they wrote.  Then I took some other paths for about 9 miles that were just plain fun - as I was finishing up my run I saw Dean (starting his) and so I ended up running a few miles with him, exploring.  Lots of hills!

54:50 - wanted to take it easy today because we are planning a hiking excursion this afternoon and it will be hilly!  Pretty much ran some of the same hills as yesterday, with some slight variations, it is so cool to be so close to the mountain paths!  Our apartment is right on the Mediterranean Sea (rocky, so not really a "beach" sea, but beautiful and clear so you can see right down into the bottom - and a wonderful blue-green color) where the Pyrenees meet. 

 
This afternoon we went up the the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes - we took a cab up and planned on hiking around up there and then hiking back down - we could have hiked both ways but it would have meant skipping our run in the morning because it would have taken about 4 - 6 hours to hike both ways.  It is pretty impressive.  Parts of it date back to at least 878 AD, and it was upgraded up until the late 18th century.  The road leading up the monastery from the port was 8k of very serpentine road ... incredible that they could build this high up so very long ago!  And it was huge (some pictures can be found at http://www.cbrava.com/santpereuk.htm).

After touring the monastery itself we took a very treacherous hike up even higher to the point of the mountain where the Castle of San Salvador is located.  The tour of the castle is not "tourist" at all it is basically a very rocky steep narrow trail on the tip of a 3000 ft mountain!  The trail leading up to the Castle is about 3/4 of a mile, but not recommended for the average tourist (a picture at the monastery shows a cartoon person falling headfirst down  off of a mountain along with several languages warning of the difficulty of the trail and strong winds -- almost discouraged me from trying it!).  But, despite the slow going (it took us about 40 mins to climb up to the top), and the fact that "getting to the top" was not the end of the difficulty (since there were no paved walkways in or around the castle either) it was well worth it.  You basically just got to climb around the old ruins of a 13th century castle - that has not been maintained, updated or excavated at all, and the view from the very top of the mountain was amazing!  A strong wind was blowing a rain storm (it rained pretty much every morning and afternoon) in and we decided to climb down and not spend too much time up on the top (as it was actually kind of scary) - but enough to look around and find the old entry way into the castle.  Then we hiked back to the town, had dinner and hiked back to the apartment (about a 8 - 10 mile hike for the day).

On the way back we saw some "dolmens" which are rock dwellings dating from 3000 BC to 700 AD -- pretty incredible.  There were so many of these types of things wherever we ran and hiked that it was overwhelming sometimes.  Sometimes it was hard to tell how old these things were -- could be BC or could have just been abandoned in the late 18th century (or even in the 70's!). 

1:09:28 - found another cool trail past a working farm that was obviously incredibly old.

Today we just enjoyed the beach, took a hike nearer to the apartment along the sea (again a pretty tough climb along the rocks), went into town and got some fresh bread and dinner and then hiked back home. We are almost regulars at the local "supermercado" (4 row supermarket).

1:18:46

Last run in the Pyrenees ... I found yet another trail that climbed a pretty steep grade then dropped into a lush valley.  I saw a half-dozen old dolmens -- amazing!  They are really small rooms made of rock (can't stand inside) with smoke holes on the top.  It looked like where I was running was once a "village" of some sort each one about 600 meters from the other ... there must have been some sort of water source nearby (though I could not see anything from the trail).  Water was pretty hard to come by up on the tops of the mountains ... though the rain probably created some nice brooks from the tops of the mountains.

Pretty sad to be leaving - I have not had internet or phone access since Saturday, and it is pretty nice.  I did lose my wallet on the way from Girona (on the train?) -- so I had to spend a little money on Saturday making long distance calls to cancel my credit cards, but basically I have not used my cell phone at all.

Today we take the train back to Barcelona and we fly back to SLC on Friday.  We probably won't run on Friday, it is a really really long travel day (about 20 hours) and it really takes a lot out of you - I am not looking forward to it really.  We flew in though Atlanta (with the longest flight being 10/11 hours) - we are flying to NY this time, nice because there is a break in the two flights (8 hours to NY + 5 hours to SLC) - but still a really long day.  We leave at 10AM Barcelona time and arrive at 4AM Barcelona time.  Despite the fact that I am sad to leave the Sea (and 6 days of no work) - I am already back to worrying about all the work I have to do, and the everyday stuff!

 Happy running bloggers
 

probably longer than 6 - but not quite 6.5.  54:58 - wanted to run 2 laps on the outside perimeter of Liberty Park, but they are doing construction there, so I had to run part of it on the inside grass lanes.

Nice weather for a run, little sunshine but still nice and cool.  Even the hills weren't too bad.