Barcelona Fit cruises through its 5th week. We are going along smoothly with some exciting seminars coming up on Nutrition & The Psychology of the Marathon. People are used the meeting place, groups, and speed now. As the times changed today, we may have to start meeting earlier in the morning and meeting sometimes in Barcelona...maybe on the beach?

Diagonal Avenue in Barcelona is where i do most of my runs now. This area is about 15 minutes from mi casa and it was taken on a Sunday morning, hence the lack of people around. On any other day you can expect many cars, people, and cyclists. At around 6:30 every evening (except maybe Fridays) you will also come across many runners. 

Barcelona Fit is off and running

 Ok, so this is the Barcelona Fit training group. Not a bad turn out for a new marathon training program here in Barcelona. We have learnt alot since we arrived and if this thing continues we will do many things different next year. I would like to see it spark an interest back into marathon running, but changing the mindset of people is often difficult. We are working on it. We have 19 signups for Barcelona Fit. Madrid Fit is yet to start, but we are looking better this week for it starting in December 2005 for the April '06 Madrid Marathon. 

My first half Marathon

Ok, so I got third and the course may have been a tad short, but I still ran well considering I am only running about 60-70kms/week. I ran solid the first half, which I probably paid for in the final 4kms when the other two moved away. I am running a race most weekends, so I feel I am getting in shape quickly. The 10-21km per week get my strength up well and I can hold a solid 3:10-3:20/km pace.

La Pedrera

Jen and I invested in two 17euro 'Artickets' and so we decided to go to the La Pedrera on the Passeig De Gracia. We have walked by it so many times and wondered what people were so interested in, so we took a peek. Gaudi sure knew what he was on about. The designs in this building, now more of an office building I think, was just amazing. Go to my Photo Blog for the pics.
Barcelona Fit is still moving along and we have our 3rd week this Saturday. Should be good if a few new runners turn up to crack that 20 people barrier.
My running is clicking along, but I still only run about 80kms per week.

Now we get ready for Madrid Fit 2006

Ok, so now Barcelona Fit has started,
see pics here http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikegregpower/ it is clearly time to change our minds and think of Madrid. It is a good flight away (45-60 mins I think)so getting down there when we have things to do and people to meet is the key. I really hope we get to do it as we had a great time doing Barcelona Fit.
Keep you posted amigos.

Oktoberfest is all over

Jen and I went to Oktoberfest and had a blast. We left on Wednesday(21/9) and came back Saturday(24/9). We had a blast with the LUDUS crew and drunk some very large 1 liter beers. We tooks some good pictures and it was amazing how many people convergered on Munich for this once a year festival. Jen and I had some travel worries on the way back (we flew out of Stuttgart), but with some swift running and a bit of luck with our plane being delayed by 45 minutes we made it on the flight. You see I thought we were catching the 10:35 plane, but infact it was the 10:05 plane! Anywho, we made it and relaxed on the 2 hours flight back to BCN.

Barcelona

Barcelona
Originally uploaded by mikegregpower.

Just a little view of some rare grass in BCN. It is getting close to the end of summer in Spain, so had to snap this before the rain set in.

Let the Games Begin!

Ok, so the time is nearly here for this thing to kick off. We have had some luck of late with getting FILA as a sponsor of apparel, so we should clear that up next week which will be a relief. Now only a few other things to tie up before October 1st. Madrid Fit is my next aim to get some things going.
Jen and I are off to Oktoberfest with the LUDUS (www.ludustours.com) group this week. We meet up with Adam, Jessica, Salma, and some others. Should be a blast for 3 days. This week we had a friend of Adam & Jessica in BCN, Anders. He's a great bloke from Denmark (now lives in Zurich) and we had fun in some nice bars that Jen & I hadn't found and the Barca Casino.

All quiet in Barcelona

Barcelona has gone quiet as everyone has gone off to a holiday place for a rest. The city is no where near as busy and most of the shops won't open until the end of the month. The World Athletic Champs are on and I either listen through the iaaf.com website, or through the local english pub at the end of the road. We are going down to the beach soon to play some beach volleyball.
Talk soon.

Having fun in BCN

Ok, so my mate Matty is in town and we got around abit the other day to Tarragona, a town about 60mins train ride south of Barca. Some great Roman ruins as it was a major city in the ripe old days of Roman dominance. To the right you can see Matty and I before we jumped on the train. We are outside Gaudi's house on Passeig de Gracia; a very popular place for the tourists and their cameras....us being one :-)
Below you will see why the Romans took Tarragona to be a stronghold. They could dominate the seas with the great views and perfect positioning on the Mediterranean. BarcelonaFit.com is nearly up and running, well the English version.
Cheers and whoever reads this...dont you have better things to do??? hahaha

Great Site

Back into training in BCN

Hi all, sorry i haven't writen in awhile just a little out of sorts being in the big city and trying to get things sorted before everyone heads out to their holiday destinations. You can see our street that we live on; it's sometimes noisy, sometimes quiet (sundays!) but we love the neighbourhood (Gracia). We are trying to learn as much Espanol as possible and move up to 4hrs/day tomorrow, so learning should come quicker....well hopefully.
I am back into training for the marathon (Barcelona Marathon) to coincide with BarcelonaFit. Hopefully I can crack 2:30.
We have got the start date for BarcelonaFit set for October 1st, 2005 for 25 weeks of training before the March 26 race. We hope it will all work out for us and we are trying our best.
I will write more soon and hopefully more consistantly from now on.

We are busy here at ESPANAFIT

ok, so the business has started and now we are getting the website up, flyers done, business cards finalised and trying to narrow down local sponser. Our Espanol is getting better, but nothing exceptional. We are flat chat with emails and everything...busy, busy, busy. Daniel and Jen Lincoln are here celebrating their 2nd wedding anniversary, so this week has been great catching up with them, although today Dan is having a bad bout of food poisioning. Off to the Tour de France tomorrow for saturday's State 14. Should be fun camping on the side of the 2001 metre mountain!

Everything going well in Barca

Everything is going well here in beautiful Barca. We have had a relaxing weekend and ready to push through more meetings and positive ideas this week. Hoping to solidify some coaches this week and also a track that we can call 'home' for the program. Learning the city bit by bit. Jen was a little sick today, but rested up well and we had a little walk around el barrio de Gracia tonight. We lazed on the beach at Premia de Mar yesterday. Good to get out of the city for the day. Hoping to get to Montserrat this week.