French People Training in Barcelona !!!

A good experience to assess our fitness …

May 12^th & 13^th, Joel, Caroline and I took a plane to join Christelle in Barcelona. A first meeting for Caroline with the rest of the French people… and the feeling was good from the beginning… Good point for building a team spirit !!! And this was confirmed throughout the weekend.

After landing late on Friday evening, we celebrated our coming over with some good rhum… 

  

We started earlier a 40 kms walk under a sunny day and with good temperatures over 25 degrees. We decided to walk in Casteldefelds surroundings, a region named the Garraf. It looks alike the “Luberon” down in the South of France near by Avignon and Aix en Provence.

We started by a steep ascent among the bushes and once the top was reached, we had a magnificent view on the sea shore and inlands as well. We seized the opportunity to make our first pictures, as well as when crossing with sheeps park..

 To the opposite to our English team mates, we did not apply advises from Oxfam as regards 10 minutes break every 11 kilometers. We stopped when we felt like doing it. But the frequency was lower than expected.

The relief was hilly and the topography was in line with the one we will meet the D day on the way from Peterfields to Brighton.

We finished the walk with 5 kilometers on the sea side and to celebrate the distance covered, we had a bath in the Meditterrean sea. I must admit it was a good decision even if at the beginning, it was a little bit hard to jump in the water at the temperature was around 15 degrees... It just took us five minutes to dip in all the body in the water. It certainly helped us to recover quicker for the following day or at least that was what we imagined…

At the end of the day, we did not need to count up the sheeps for getting asleep… We were sleeping before the countdown even started as the sheeps never got the time to show up!!!

The second day, we visited Barcelona (Sea side, old quarters, Gruel’s Park etc…) and we walk a 21 extra kilometres in 5 hours. Our pace was slower as we were in the city (people, traffic lights etc...) and as you can imagine walking on the pavement turned out to be more difficult than walking in the country side. No trees but very nice architecture so everybody enjoyed the visit

Conclusions:

1. Keep on stretching all the way and every time we stop… Joel had quite a lot of muscles ackes on Monday for not doing it enough time during the walk
2. Drink water often. Every ten minutes should be a good pace. I felt very weak on Monday as I did not hydrate myself enough
3. Put a “ Second Skin” on sensitive part of your feet to prevent blister or other inconveniences
4. Choose special socks made for trekking or long distance walk…It really makes the difference as Christelle would agree
5. Do not underestimate the footwear. Joel brought a pair of running shoes and quickly realised they were no good for the type of paths and distance we are supposed to cover

Findings:

1. We should be able to cover the 100 kilometers
2. A good will and solidarity between team mates… very important
3. Need to train again and again in accumulating kilometres at weekends.

Sebastian

Training in Barcelona