My Bike and I

I hope you had a great weekend! I cycled so much that any bike ride over 20 minutes I’m going to have to call a workout. My quads are really doing number today!Friday I said hello to the Anis Monkey on my morning run. I chose to run along the power station, to the next town up in search of shade and breeze. I found it and faced my issue with walkways over water. I think that if something falls in, then bye bye. Badalona has a great pier and I was determined to run it, just because, as you do. Last time, Paul was with me, but today I was on my own some. I only got slight heebie-jeebies 3/4 way back and was proud of myself that I dealt it with minimum freakout. So proud, I ran it twice Sunday. Every now and then go and do something that scares you. You might surprise yourself! 

The best thing about the infamous La Boquiera market are it’s juices. Depending on which time of day you go, they’re either €1.50 or €1. This orange and strawberry juice was very welcome, when you forget how much walking and different shops you have to go here and there for and realise that you have to cycle home with it all. I’m not complaining, I know how fortunate I am, but it’s no wonder I have tight shoulders, quads and calves.

Saturday’s are reserved for HIIT/Interval workouts. 2 circuits, 4 sets, 10 reps each, 3 rounds with minimal rest in-between sets, rest in-between each round for about 30-45 seconds. That was the plan, but my cold had other ideas with longer rest periods. I follow the rule, that if illness/cold is above the neck it’s okay to workout. Anything cold/illness below the neck, skip it. And if it’s summer and you’re near a beach, sleep it off.Saturday afternoon we cycled up the coast to one of the Badalona’s beaches and ended up cycling much further up, about 3 towns to Masnou. Curiosity got the better of us. I didn’t know that you could walk, run, cycle from Sant Sebastian beach near Port Vell, Barcelona up along the Costa Brava. You literally walk along the coast, either on, next to the beaches. Great if you’re training for distance. We stopped off at an old fishing village for a siesta and lunch before heading further up to check out a building I can see from our house. I never found the building, but I did find amazing views of Barcelona in the distance cycling back. Same spot, one hour later.

10km Sunday and that pier twice, because now I can. I wanted to sweat off my cold. Ha! It had manifested into a sore throat and nasty rough cough afterwards. No motorbike ride as you can’t have a good cough inside an helmet and all I wanted to do was sleep. Everywhere was sore, my body wanted rest. With the walls closing in I took my siesta outside when the sun came out to play. When in Rome for the weekend.

As for those quads, they don’t get rest, though they’d appreciate the foam roller. They were out at it again running errands with 1 hour, 15 minutes of cycling, in effect my second workout of the day. That’s the thing when a bici is your transport, you don’t see it as a workout until you feel it.