Parkrun 34: 38.12. Age-graded: 40.88%

Here's a new nadir - my slowest time yet. Even slower than my first ever parkrun.

I gave blood on Thursday, and I don't think I've tried to run so soon after it. It was also hot, I was full of hayfever, and I'm probably dehydrated.

I started off at the back of pack, at what I thought was a reasonable pace, but which turned out to be quite fast for my condition. I slowed down, and really plodded. For some reason, my legs were giving me lots of grief - it's the first time in a while that my legs have slowed me down.

I had to stop and walk just before the path went up the weir, then again on the far field, and again after the steps. I made myself keep going after this, but I was going incredibly slowly.

The walk up the hill was horrible. Strangely, I felt much better after taking an antihistamine after getting home. Maybe it was just the hayfever that was affecting me.

My time was a bit disappointing, as I didn't think I'd gone quite that slowly. Anyway, I'm still glad I did it, because otherwise I would have hated myself for the rest of the weekend.

Parkrun 33: 34:44. Age graded: 44.96%

So, it's been a while again. Some Saturdays busy, some under the weather, and yes, some plain lazy. But I got down there again, and I'm glad I did.

Christian dropped me near the Easton St car park, and it's actually a really easy walk across the Rye to the start line. I took my place at the back with the sole aim of getting through it and not stopping.

I took off very slowly, and never tired. In fact, I started to overtake people after about 2km. And I even had some left in the tank to accelerate to the finish. It felt good.

The time was a bit of a surprise. I thought it would be much slower than what I've been doing, but I'm actually pretty pleased with it.

Parkrun 32: 34.32. Age-graded: 44.88%

I'm in Australia again! I thought it would be rude not to do parkrun, and I chose Lake Mac.

Christian came with me, and Clint, Jess and Alice met us there.

I wasn't feeling wonderful, but made myself get up and go.

I set off with a crowd of around 400, not terribly fast, and immediately hurt, both in the legs and the lungs. I'd settled down by Five Islands Rd, and happily plodded for a while.

Jess caught up to me before the turnaround, and Clint went whizzing past us at this point. I paid the price of going too fast by running out of steam. I slowed a lot and Jess went past me to find a spot to let Alice have a run.

I went past them and struggled into the headwind, on the edge of nausea.

Back in the park, I felt a bit more comfortable, and Jess caught up with me soon after. We ran to the finish together and managed a little sprint to the finish.

I'd felt like I was really slow, but it turned out I did ok. I'm glad I did it, but it was hard work.

Clint sailed home in just over 20 mins.

Parkrun 31: 35.57. Age-graded: 43.12%

Ugh. This was so hard.

I walked down the hill because Christian was out. But I don't think it was just that that broke me.

They'd changed the course to try and take the pressure off the grass, and so cut out the first sweep around the end football field, having the start facing the other way, and going straight to the path. Then at the end, they put in an extra out-and-back going away from the finish.

The problems with the new course were as follows:

• The runners were still too tightly packed when they reached the paved paths (both immediately after the start, and behind the weir). It was too difficult to go your own pace and overtake people, and the leaders didn't have enough room to pass on the two-way weir section.
• The last grassy out-and-back section was much too soft and slow to run on.

I felt like I took off as strongly as I could have, and was OK until going past the finish line. But that new out-and-back killed me. I had to stop and walk there. I also found the abundance of mud on the course, and the attempt not to slip on it, sapped my legs way too much.

So I had a terrible time. At the finish, there was a rumour that the course was actually longer than 5k, and I'd believe it, frankly.

Anyway, still glad I ran. I was hoping to improve my time, but the conditions were against me.

Parkrun 30: 35.23. Age-graded: 43.81%

Just call me Ploddy.

I knew this was going to be really slow, but I had to get back to it and start somewhere.

It was cold, but not wet, and not particularly icy (though the puddles on the paths were all frozen). Christian dropped me down the hill, and I walked to the meeting point. On the way, I heard my name, tentatively, and turned to see Yuki from Chiltern band walking alongside me. She lives nearby, and was on her way to a zumba class at the Lido gym. It was nice to see her.

It was time to get to the start, so I joined a fairly large group, did the usual back-patting, and set off. I just plodded. We'd been directed up onto the path shortly after the start, to help save the surface of the football pitch, so we were dodging ice nearly from the beginning. I was going as fast as I dared as we headed up the long edge of the Rye. My knee gave me a couple of pangs early on, which warned me to take it easy.

I didn't struggle too much behind the weir, and by the time I came down onto the far field, my heart and lungs weren't giving me too much grief at all. I was able to keep up whatever pace I had to the end.

It wasn't a good time, but I'm glad I did it. I saw Jamie at the end (he'd passed me behind the weir), and we had a chat.

I'm determined to keep this up. I must keep moving because my weight and girth are becoming an issue.

Rainy filling in time, and flight home

The alarm went off again at 8am, but I decided against going to the gym again, as my legs were sore, and we'd done so much walking the day before after all.

We went down for breakfast, and the rain started as we were eating. We'd intended to go to the La Boqueria markets, but they don't open on Sundays. I officially lose at seeing the things I really want to see. So we looked into alternatives. Nothing really presented itself on such a miserable day. Walking in the gothic quarter would be unpleasant, and we couldn't stray too far from the city as our flight was that evening. The only ideas I had were to find other markets or shopping areas, or just ride around on public transport all day. Christian found a great left luggage service in the city

We sat down to watch more telly while we decided. Which perhaps was a mistake.

We checked out and decided on the public transport plan - I wanted to explore the extremities of the tram lines, and so we once again got the metro into Plaza Catalunya. It was rammed with post-holiday bargain hunters. . . with umbrellas. We found the luggage place, and successfully locked up our stuff.

It was lunch time, and a friend of Christian's had recommended a place in the gothic quarter. It was closed, but we went into the nearby 4 Cats. We ordered bread and an interesting savoury panna cotta as starters. Then for main, we had an almost paella - 'dry' rice with mushrooms, artichoke, and chicken. It was delicious, but very filling.

The challenge now was to find our way to the end of the T1/2/3 tram line. Christian decided on a metro route, which would have a walk at the end. Then just as we found the right metro entrance, he found a better bus route. Except we missed one, and Google kept giving us different bus options and sending us annoyingly around the square.

Christian gave up and handed the reigns to me. I found an L1 metro route that would allow us to meet up with the trams. We took it. The tram wasn't as exciting as I'd thought, though it was certainly interesting to see more of the city. At the end of the T1 line, we turned straight back, retracing our steps. I'd wanted to get to the other end of the trams, specifically Badalona, but we didn't have time to make it worthwhile, and even going on the metro wouldn't allow us to see much.

So we got off at the bottom of Las Ramblas, and wandered up the street. It had stopped raining by now, and most of the market stalls were closing up (it was 5pm by now). We wandered off to the right, looking for a sit down and a hot drink, and found a nice place called Gelatiamo. I ordered tiramisu/stracchiatella gelato, and Christian had a Belgian coffee (with Cointreau in it).

We decided to call it a day, and get our luggage and find the Aerobus (which was conveniently lined up waiting in Plaza Catalunya). The journey to the airport was uneventful, and we were in comfortable time for our 8.30pm flight.

Once there, we went through security, admiring our reflections in the shiny floor. We went to find somewhere to sit, but there wasn't anywhere. Christian decided it was time to join a lounge scheme, and did so online. We tried one lounge, but they couldn't get his membership to work, so we went through passport control and found another one, where the woman let me through for free (when she probably wasn't supposed to).

We found comfy armchairs, and relaxed, ate, and drank. It was very nice. We headed for the gate, and ended up rushing a little as we were late. They had only just started boarding, though.

It was a full flight, and there was no space in the overhead lockers. We persuaded one man to take a small bag and coats to put under his seat, for my bag, and Christian put his under the seat in front (just). The flight was fine, though the pilot had been expecting turbulence from a thunderstorm to the north.

We landed in London, went through passport control, found Ahmed with the car, pushed through all the stupid valet people stopping in stupid places, and drove home. We got there about 10.30.

Beach and Tibidabo

I was good and got up not long after 8am and ran on the treadmill in the nice gym up on the twelfth floor. Good equipment, good view, though blinded by the sun. Interesting Spanish telly, including an ad for junior master chef.

A shower, and then down to breakfast. They had an amazing range, and quite a few people coming through, so it was replenished regularly. The tea/coffee machine was tedious, though.

We walked to the beach at 11am, watching the world go past as we walked towards the casino. People were fishing, playing volleyball, and even beach football. As we neared the casino, there was a huge restaurant/bar strip, along a pier, and then along the shore, which was all closed at that time of the day. When we'd seen enough, there was a handy tram nearby that went back to the hotel. Yay trams. Checked out the Japanese restaurant across the road for dinner that night.

Upon arriving at the hotel restaurant, we found out that due to the religious festival (Epiphany) that day, no lunch would be served in the hotel, despite us being told our free meal could be taken at lunch time. So we went to Japanese now instead. It was €16.50 all you could eat, and wasn't bad for the price. The cooked stuff was better than the sushi, though the salmon was surprisingly fresh and nice.

Went back up to the room to decide what to do for the rest of the day. The La Boucheria markets were closed for Epiphany. I checked all the tourist information for something else to do, and decided on Tibidabo, but we could see it from the hotel and cloud was descending on it fast. In the absence of any other ideas, we set off.

We walked to Glories, and got the L1 metro to Plaza Catalunya. Then we got an S2 to Peu del Funicula, and then the cool funicula to Vallvidrera. Then it was a bus to Tibidabo itself. All done on our ten-ride ticket, which didn't seem to be running out. The views of the city from the bus were good.

The amusement park was closed, but we weren't interested in that. It was cold and windy, and I was keen to check out the giant church on top of the mountain that you could see from the city. We turned towards it now.

We went into the chapel underneath first. It was pretty, with very intricate mosaics. People were lighting candles, both real and electric. From there, we walked through to where the lift was, and bought tickets. We got out at the highest point, and went out into the wind. There was a balcony all the way around, but alas, the only view we got was of the cool statues against the cloud. From there, we took some stairs, then small winding stairs. At the top, there was nothing but more wind and more cloud. The view would have been stunning on a clear day.

We'd had enough, so reversed our journey, though this time on an S1. At Catalunya, we came out of the metro and had a wander down Las Ramblas, and into some of the interesting streets. Christian bought a phone cable and I bought a bracelet. We saw the cathedral, some amazing acrobatic buskers, and then found ourselves at the Arc de Triomf. We got the metro back to Glories, though it was close enough that we could see the gherkin. Our feet had had enough by then (mine was a total of 25,000 steps for the day).

We got back about 7pm, which was good timing. We watched an episode of Victoria, and got ready to go down for dinner. Thankfully, they did want to serve us this time. I had zucchini soup (very nice), fish (not so nice), and chocolate ice cream (tasty). Christian had pasta, odd slow-cooked chicken, and a layered cake. We both had sangria again.

I think we watched another Victoria episode, and then went to bed.

To Barcelona (again)

So Christian has proven that he can be spontaneous, and bought us a lovely holiday to Barcelona after Christmas.

We left home at 5.45 and met Mark from Whitecar at 6.30. Security was simple enough, and we then had breakfast in a pub (eggs benedict for Christian and pancakes for me). It was a 7.45 flight from terminal 3.

The flight was uneventful apart from the very tall woman behind me kneeing me in the kidneys. I asked her to please desist, and she did. I dozed for much of the flight, and Christian took photos over me out the window.

Arrival in Barcelona was easy, and passport control was quick. We found the Aerobus to Plaza Espanya, which cost €10 each return. At Plaza Espanya, we bought a ten-ride public transport ticket and took the metro to Glories. From there, it was a short walk to the hotel. It was too early to check in so we left our bags there.

We didn't have much time, so we caught a bus straight away to as close to Sagrada Familia as we could get, and had a tapas lunch at Xamfra Gaudi? I thought we were pretty clear about what we wanted, and thought the man had understood (he had good English), but we still ended up with a wrong order of meatballs. The meal was still quite nice - we had compulsory patatas bravas, grilled squid (amazing), tempura aubergine (not as good as it sounds) and something else.

We then walked the short distance to Sagrada Familia, and felt very cold in its shadow. Christian went to get audio guides while I waited amongst the tourist chaos. We discovered that our tower visit, so thoughtfully booked by Christian, had been cancelled due to wind. Disappointing, but we will get our money back apparently. So instead, we took our time and worked through the very good audio guide.

We started with the external features, which were all very symbolic, and interesting. My favourite bits were the turtle and tortoise. And then we went inside. The audio guide played some swelling choral music, but nothing prepared me for what I saw. I just looked up and gawped for about ten minutes, feeling a bit overcome and emotional. The inside was not anything like the outside. It was much more symmetrical and regular looking, and gentle, and the glass was just the most beautiful I've seen. The way he planned the use of light, and the sheer size of it, getting lighter as it went up, was genius. We looked at various features, guided by the recording, and marvelled. Some of it was still shut off for works, which is a shame. We went out the opposite door and studied that facade too.

Next we went into the museum underneath. It showed just what a genius he was with architecture and maths, and what an undertaking this project actually was/is. It's not scheduled to be finished until 2024, and the central towers are going to dwarf what's already there. I can't imagine how huge it will be. We didn't spend any time in the shop.


We walked rather than bused back to the hotel. I'd been cold, but the walking route was somehow all in the warm sun. We stopped at a fuel station to get a drink and some interesting nutty meringue things, and again in Carrefour so I could see whether they carried French products (they didn't).

Back to hotel at 3.30. At this point, we could get our hotel key, and were pleasantly surprised that they'd taken our luggage to the room. We followed it up. The room was small, but well appointed, if very much not soundproof. We were also on the road side of the building, and so the road noise was very noticeable. We were both exhausted, so had a nap, which, initially an hour, got extended until 6.30.

We got ready and went downstairs for dinner. I had a spring roll (actually nice) and beef canelloni, Christian had a (huge) salad and fish. We both had sangria and crema catalana. It was a good meal, in that the recipes were simple but very tasty.

Back upstairs, we watched some telly, and went to bed not particularly late.