Spain Photo Dump + 4 Weeks to Giant Race 10K!

Hello, all! I'm back from my conference in Spain & catching up on training logs such as they are. Not a ton of running got done over these 12 days, but it wasn't zero running, and on the plus side, I took some cool photos.

*~*~The Giant Race 10K Week 4 of 9~*~*~

Grand Total: 22 miles

* 20 easy
* 2 speed

Monday 7/11: Rest

Tuesday 7/12: 1 hour strength + 8 easy errand run. My trainer was out so no strength on Tuesday, just a very draining "easy" eight miles that I tried to use to run some errands (mostly grocery shopping) because I had too much to do & not enough time to do it. 🙈 GODDD I was tired!

Wednesday 7/13: 2 warm up, 10 x 1:00 hill repeats/recovery jogs, 2 cool down = 8 total. I have no good hills for this sort of thing even remotely close to home. Sigh.

Thursday 7/14: 6 easy. I was kind of nuts getting ready to leave & just couldn't make this one happen.

Friday 7/15: On a plane! No running.

Saturday 7/16: 6 easy if jet-lagged miles around Parque El Retiro in Madrid. Madrid was triple digits the entire time I was there but the nice thing about jet-lag is that you're usually wide-awake by 5am. Okay 7am. In any case by 9:30 I was out the door and it was still relatively pleasant out, so I used the opportunity to jog around the park and stop for photos. The heat didn't get too bad but MAN I got so thirsty and spent so much of this run looking for water fountains & sprinklers to drink out of and/or run through.

Sunday 7/17: 6-9 easy Train to Alicante. The only way this run was going to happen was if I got up early again but I didn't sleep well and had to catch a mid-morning train, so it didn't happen. In lieu of a Strava entry please enjoy these photos from my hotel room window:

 

 *~*~The Giant Race 10K Week 5 of 9~*~*~

Grand Total: 6 easy miles lol

I fully intended to do several easy runs during the conference week, but friends. I had NO IDEA all the challenges that would entail. Challenge #1 was the heat & humidity. It was triple digits and 50-60% humidity the whole time. I'm sure there are people in the world who can run in that but I am not built for it. In my opinion it was too hot outside even to breath let alone run.

Am I delicate flower? Possibly. 

 We had a wine tasting outing one day where I met some lovely Israelis who a) helped me navigate the tram back to town and b) insisted I needed a photo in front of this giant fist.

Not that that really mattered because our conference days were packed full, with activities & sessions 9am to 7 or 8pm most days. Then it is time to go back to the hotel to change and shower (the conference was not air conditioned) and get ready for dinner at 10pm (because Spain). So I don't think I ever got back to the hotel before midnight even once. Which means there is really no reasonable way to get up early and run in time to get back at 7:45am, eat breakfast, and get ready to leave by 8:30am.

Saturday 7/23: After the conference ended on Saturday, I waited until about 7pm and created myself a six-mile Google route that took me up-up-up to the crazy fortress in the above photo & some amazing views of Alicante, & then back down the other side to a part of town I hadn't been to. 

 

 

 

 

I was not feeling optimistic about this run given that it was *still* at least *half* a billion degrees and humid and involved a lot of steep running uphill, but once I got to the top of the fortress it actually ended up being a pretty decent run (besides frantically looking for water fountains, which became a theme on this trip).

 

I was feeling optimistic enough, in fact, that I thought I'd get up early and run before catching my train back to Madrid. But no. We have already established that getting up early is not a possibility when dinner keeps you up until midnight. (Also I had been thinking my train was at 12-something but good thing I double checked my ticket since it was actually at 9:15am, which made getting up early even moreso Not An Option.)

 

Then I thought I'd get a Sunday evening run in Madrid, but my body had other plans. I think once I got off the train and to my hotel was when the post-conference exhaustion finally hit; I fell asleep for like three hours and barely managed to drag myself to dinner at 9pm. On the plus side, dinner views were not terrible:

 

Plaza de Santa Ana

 

So yeah -- that's weeks 4 & 5. I'm currently well into week 6 and getting back to normal more or less successfully. Just four more weeks until The Giant Race 10K!

Past Training Journals:

• The Giant Race 10K 2022 Week 1
• The Giant Race 10K 2022 Week 2
• The Giant Race 10K 2022 Week