Friday
I didn’t sleep very well as I started to
get nervous, wondering if everything was going to go ok with all the transfers,
luggage, and checking into the hotel.
After a busy day at work I decided to walk home from Westbury Park as I
didn’t want to go grocery shopping but Al didn't have time to drop me off or
she would have hit the rush hour. Instead I could finalise my packing and
prepare my last meal at home. Hopefully I could even have a sleep before our
mammoth journey which would take all night.
Several hours later, minus the sleep, I met
Kath at Hanley Bus station, which was absolutely freezing and the arctic wind
was howling through the flimsy shelter, every now and then, threatening to lift
the roof off. All we could focus on was
the thought of getting to Birmingham's new Digbeth station where it would be
warm and we could get a hot drink.
The coach luckily arrived on time and it
was warm. I had been wondering why it
was going to take 2 hours to get to Birmingham and soon it was revealed that we
were to go via Wolverhampton.
Saturday
We finally got to Birmingham at just past
midnight. To our horror, we found that all the shops and cafes at Digbeth were
closed, the heating didn't work and the hot drinks machine had a large “out of order” notice on it. We were
going to virtually freeze to death in the two hours we were going to have to
wait there. We swear that if it wasn’t
for dragging our cases around with us, we would have put our running gear on
and jogged up and down the aisles to keep warm.
Instead we were forced to sit and watch a very bored night cleaner push
a floor polisher back and forth along the corridor and trying to sit absolutely
still so that we wouldn’t lose too much body heat. It was a nightmare two hours. Then the next
two hours was spent on the coach to Luton, which was stopped at Birmingham
Airport, Milton Keynes and further three places before we finally go there.
Although we had two hours to spend at the
airport, the time seemed to go really quickly. We had no real trouble with the
check-in as such. I stupidly carried my liquids pouch through the scanner which
must have immensely upset the female security guard who proceeded to search me
very thoroughly. I'm guessing she wanted
to teach me a lesson, which was duly noted. Kath also got her bags searched but
they passed us both on our way fairly quickly.
Having never flown with Easyjet before, I
was quite impressed. There would be no
complaints from me about our flight and two hours later we could see the
outline of Barcelona's impressive coastline below us and before we knew it we
were outside looking for a bus to town. We couldn’t see any buses at all and
reluctantly took a taxi to the hotel.
The taxi’s meter read just under €20 but for some unknown reason he
charged us to €30. Great, that was half of my spending money gone, robbing
bastard.
We put our cases into storage and went to
pick up our bibs and running material. I knew it was only some 2.5km away,
which was a comfortable walk. The sports
centre where we had to go had also go stands for running clothes, shoes and
accessories. We took our time to browse
them after we’d got donned with our smart, bright, green t-shirts and bibs with
our names printed on. Earlier we had
panicked because we had both forgotten to bring pins but there was no need to
fret as they were provided.
Eventually hunger got the better of us and
we manage to tear ourselves away in order to go hunting for food. Anyone who
has been to Barcelona will know it is a food heaven. We were so spoilt for choice and everyone was
very keen for us to eat in their establishments but we noticed that they were
polite about it; not pushy like in other parts of Spain and the rest of the
world. We settled on a small but exceptionally busy tapas bar that boasted a
set menu to share which appealed to us.
We had a lovely cheese, ham and chorizo salad with garlic bread for
starters, followed by a nice seafood paella. There was a jug of sangria
included in the meal which the bar keeper assured us was “not too strong”.
Afterwards we walked up and down the
streets in old town. We got lost a few
times but it didn’t matter as everything was new anyway, so there was plenty to
see. When it was time to check-in to the hotel, we found it fairly easy in the
end. We passed a supermarket and bought
some fruit and yoghurt for our tea so that we wouldn’t need to go out
again. It was time to start resting and
preparing for tomorrows run.
Our room was a reasonable size with a small
balcony on the 5th floor overlooking the Gran Via del Corts. It was quite basic but immaculately cleaned to
the degree that it even impressed me. I
was envious that they could employ cleaners that were willing to do a good job
when we've had no success in that ourselves. All afternoon we had seen people
coming past us with fancy dress and placards whilst chanting and drumming. We soon came to realise that it must be some
mass demonstration as they marched past our hotel in their thousands and
thousands for hours on end. Kath had done a 12 hour shift on Friday before
starting off the travel and at half-seven it finally took a toll on her and she
fell asleep. I closed the doors to the
balcony to drown out the noise but I doubt it she would have heard anything. I
was shattered myself but was following the FA cup on my phone which was Everton
against Oldham and we were winning most of the match until almost the end when
they managed to net a ball in the 90th minute. Aw, well, I was
disappointed but at least this meant that Oldham is now coming to Goodison for
the re-match. As soon as the match
finished I went to sleep immediately after myself.
Sunday
I had pre-booked an early breakfast as I
guessed that it may be a problem with the restaurant opening times, so next
morning at 6am we went down and picked up our picnic breakfast from reception
and booked a taxi to the Mitja. The efficient reception bloke rang us at 7.20
to tell us taxi was waiting for us exactly on time.
It only took around 5 to ten minutes to get
to the start of the Mitja and the taxi driver only charged us the same amount
as it said on the meter, which confirmed to us that the other one had robbed
us.
Even though we were there a bit earlier
than we needed to, it was surprisingly busy with a lot of runners jogging in
the streets nearby. The ‘pens’ as they called them, where set out ready with
markers to match our bibs. One of the
officials offered to take a photo of both of us at the start/finish gate. It looked good with the rows of pens behind
us.
To keep warm until start, I brought an old
jumper and jacket that I could dump somewhere and hopefully pick up again after
the race but sadly Kath only had her new cardigan that she had for Christmas
and had never worn before and it got stolen L
It wasn’t long before we got called to our
positions and considering that there were more than 14 and a half thousand
runners participating, it didn’t really take that long to get everyone in
place. We were so far back that we
neither heard nor saw the beginning of the race take off but we found out that
for each group they shot up some large confetti in the colour of the bibs,
starting with the elites and followed by each group according to speed. It was
amazing to see how far these little circles of confetti travelled, the black
ones (first group) went the furthest at a at least a mile. I noticed that by
the time our chips were activated, the clock already had 15 minutes on it.
The race seemed to go at an incredibly fast
pace to start with and after the first few kilometres we were both wondering if
we will be able to complete with running so fast at the beginning but luckily
it slowed down after 4 or 5 kilometres to a more manageable pace. The first water station came around
surprisingly quickly and we were surprised to see that they had also organised a
toilet at each station but there was a good queue for them and we were pleased
not to need them.
Shortly after we ran past our hotel and
wondered if the reception bloke would see us but of course he wouldn’t, there
were nearly 15 thousand of us after all. We continued on the course back
towards the start and then over to the other side to complete the other
half. We ran past some land marks and
some residential areas as well as shops and businesses but throughout the
course there were lots of people cheering us on. Every now and then we were accompanied by
musicians, dancers, cheerleaders and other entertainers. It was fantastic and we felt emotional when
from time to time we heard the tune from last night’s demonstration being
drummed and all the Spanish runners cheered and clapped loudly. Obviously it meant something to them.
We ran past the beach and I admired the
golden sands against the blue water. By
now the sun was high in the sky and the sweat was pouring of us. It ran into my eyes and I cursed the fact
that I forgotten to bring my spare pair of socks that id planned to put on my
hand for wiping sweat. Now I was paying the penalty with stinging eyes which I
could only keep open one at a time. I
couldn’t believe that there were people running with sweat tops and long
trousers, hats and even gloves. How do
they do it?
It was fascinating to see and hear all the
different nationalities amongst the runners. A Chinese lady kept running past
us and then stop and walk so we had to go past her, only for her to come past
us again and stop. This went on for a
while but then eventually she didn’t come past us again. Then we got pestered
by an English woman who sounded like a tank engine, huffing and puffing in
between swearing who kept asking us how far was left and if we guessed at
something, she immediately disagreed with it and said it was less. We asked her
why it mattered and she said because her husband will moan at her for not
finishing within a time that he has set for her. We just looked at each other and shook our
heads. I said to her that if I were her
Id change the husband rather than change the way I run. Quite clearly she didn't enjoy the run so
what was the point of doing it? Luckily
we soon managed to leave her behind but we could still hear her loud mouth for
a while afterwards but at least she didn’t spoil our enjoyment anymore.
I hadn’t planned to do a sprint today since
we were still slightly exhausted by the journey and all the walking yesterday,
not to mention the fast pace at the beginning of the race but Kath started
speeding up a bit during the last kilometre so I followed her. When we got close enough to see the clock at
2:43, I shouted to Kath, shall we see if we can make it before the 2:45 mark and
broke into a sprint. I heard the chip
time beep as we went through on 2:44 and guessed that we were just less than
two and a half hours.
We were urged to continue walking for quite
a while on to the park where we first collected a bottle each of sports drink
and water then our beautiful medals and last some fresh fruit. We did some stretches and then continued
walking until we got back to the hotel.
A well deserved bath and shower got
followed by a nice meal at another busy Tapas bar. This time we had a plain salad to share and a
4-cheese Tortellini each. I didn’t
really know what it was but it sounded good.
It turned out to be very fine pasta made into little Mexican hats and
filled with spinach and vegetables in a fantastic cheese sauce. Absolutely delicious!
Neither of us felt like walking very far so
on the way back we picked up some groceries for tea again and had another early
night.
Monday
I woke at 7am and got up shortly
after. We went to the dining room for a
lovely buffet breakfast. There was a
selection of fruits, cereals, yoghurts, breads and cakes as well as hot food
such as bacon, sausages and scrambled egg.
I was beginning to miss having regular tea but tried to substitute it
with mint tea instead, which was actually quite good.
After breakfast we went out to make our way
to Camp Nou. The original idea was to
take the tour bus there but since having spent half of my money on the taxi
from the airport, I was worried that the tour bus would be too expensive. Instead we decided to follow our reception
guy’s advice and take the Metro which turned out to be just €2 each. We were very shocked to find that they had
heating on in the underground stations and trains, keeping the temperature at a
constant 19˚C.
I had already been pre-warned that it was
very expensive to actually go in to Camp Nou so I had no intension of doing
that but I did hope there was going to be places that we could take photos
wearing our Potters Trotters vests for the news letter. There weren’t many
places outside so we had to use the side of the kiosk where they were selling
merchandise until we found that it was free entry to the 2-storey shop with
access to lots of pictures of the players.
We spent a couple of hours browsing through all the items and dreaming
of all the gifts we would buy with a lottery win (if only we would have bought
a ticket).
We stayed until lunch-time and then took
the Metro back to La Rambla where we had lunch in the same place as yesterday.
This time Kath had a lasagne and I decided to have a risotto, which turned out
to be a mistake. It arrived in a small
soup bowl which was just half-full and left me wondering how I would manage
with that until teatime. I spotted this,
what-looked-like a fruit salad on the tapas counter and asked the waiter if I
could have some. He proceeded to tell me
that it wasn’t fruit but tomatoes with goat’s cheese but I decided to have some
anyway.
We bought our tea from the supermarket on
the way back to the hotel and had a rest for a few hours. Later we went for a
walk down the La Rambla to see the market stalls. There were ever such a lot of people about and
it made us realise that this must be the time that the city comes to life. From there we walked along to the seafront
and the marina. The dusk soon changed to
dark and we would experience Barcelona in a completely different light. It was possibly even more beautiful than in
daylight.
I remembered seeing a beach whilst running
and came up with the idea of trying to find it.
This was not an easy task as the darkness brought a new problem for us.
We couldn’t see the map, not even with light from my mobile phone, so I was
trying to go by memory which seemed to go ok until we came across a large dual
carriage way with barriers on both sides.
Presumably there were bridges but as we couldn’t see them we thought it
was best to abort that mission and return back.
The combination of walk and sea air knocked us both out and we went to
sleep early yet again
Tuesday
Aw, the realisation that it was our last
day in Barcelona made us have mixed feelings.
It would be sad to leave such a lovely place, the climate, the people
and everything else and we felt that there was a lot more we would like to see
but wouldn’t have time. On the other hand it would be nice to be back with Al
and the girls as I’d missed them like mad.
Also the thought of a nice big cup of Earl Grey sounded very appealing.
Still, we did have almost one whole day left so we need to make the most of it.
After another lovely breakfast it was just
enough time to pack our stuff and leave them in the hotel storage. Sam recommended us to go to Parc Güell and we
had planned to do that first thing but soon realised that it was too far away
as it wasn’t on our map. We didn't want
to risk getting lost on our last day.
Instead we went to the park that was near to the start/finish of the
Mitja – Parc de La Ciutadella. It was
quite a large park with a lake and an unusual building surrounded by a moat and
waterfall. Unfortunately, the moat was
drained due to maintenance but it still looked impressive. We saw quite a few runners, yet again dressed
in the most unusual clothes such as thick track-suits, sweatshirts and fleece
jackets. How they could run in that heat
dressed like that was beyond us
We left the park and started to head north
towards the temple Sagrada Familia. It
was a good couple of miles there and on the way there we got some photos of the
Torre Agbar on the way. We returned to the park and had a coffee in the little
cafe. It was midday and sun was really
strong and warm and I found out afterwards that it had tanned my face. Its a lovely thought for February.
At lunch-time we decided to find somewhere
that does a set menu so that we don’t get no surprises when the bill
comes. We looked at a few places on the
La Rambla and eventually settled on a reasonably busy place that looked really
nice and was very clean. I had some
tapas for starters and Kath had an unusual chicken broth with large pieces of
chicken breast. It looked really tasty
and she confirmed that it was. I don’t
know what my tapas were but they were gorgeous. One was a piece of crusty bread
with a hummus like topping but with something tasty added, another was another
piece of the bread with some other topping, the 3rd was pieces of,
what looked like artichokes and the fourth a finely chopped vegetable mixture
in a vinaigrette. Both of us had a pizza
for main and a Catalan Creme for pudding. I had seen that in a cooking
programme recently but I couldn’t remember how it was made but it tasted
similar to a panacotta but slightly grainier. Very nice indeed!
Now it was time to collect our bags and get
to the airport. We decided the other day
that we would go there by Metro but we were struggling to figure out which
station we should go to. We walked to
the same one as we had the previous day but decided that our line, the R2 was not
going from there so we went to the next one.
This one was a huge station and we discovered that the ‘R’ lines weren’t
metro lines at all but ordinary trains that went underground. We were told to change at the main station
which was one stop away. It was funny
because we entered the train underground and the temperature gauge read 19˚ but
as we got out in the open air, it kept dropping rapidly and ended up at
14˚. Anywhere else that would have been
reversed as surely the temperature underground should be less than above
ground.
We got to the station at plenty of time and
had no hick-ups with check-in. I was
asked to check-in my bag because, apparently the plain was full and I might
struggle to get it in the locker. That's
what their excuse was anyway and I went along with it but did live to regret
that decision later.
The flight went incredibly quick and our
female captain seemed to be in a rush to get home as she took off early and we
got back 10 minutes before time. Then it felt like absolutely ages before my
bag appeared out on the conveyor belt so all that extra time was lost anyway.
We had a very quick drink and ran towards
our coach but the driver also decided to take off early and pulled away just
before we could reach it. We couldn’t
believe our eyes. After a lengthy call to National Express they manage to track
the coach and found that the driver was indeed at fault and should have allowed
more time for any time differences. They
organised for us to take the next coach which should just about be in time for
the Stoke coach in Birmingham.
Wednesday
The coach finally came, ten minutes late at
nearly one am. By then we were very
frozen. We had seen as we landed that there was ice on the windows of the cars
parked on the car park and knew it must be minus degrees. As it got warm on the
coach we kept drifting off to sleep for a bit but the journey still felt like
it was going on forever. Luckily there
were only two stops one at Milton Keynes and one at Birmingham airport. We both breathed a sigh of relief when we
overheard the driver ring the depot and ask them to hold back the stoke bus
because he had passengers for it and was running late. Thank God, at least we were going to get home
this morning.
Birmingham Coach Station might have been as
grim as it was few days ago but we wouldn’t know as we just had to go from one
coach to another and not spend any time there.
After a brief stop at Stafford we motored back quite quickly and I can
honestly say that I have never been so happy to see Hanley Bus station
before. Just a short taxi trip and I
arrived home at 4.30 am.
A big Thank You to all those who donated to the Air Ambulance. Total raised was £231.25, just a little short of the one hour of airtime I had hoped for but I will continue raising for future runs and it's not too late if you still want to donate something to them http://fundraising.midlandsairambulance.com/leesbarcelonarun
