As I went out yesterday morning to fetch the bike in the glorious day that it was, I caught this ladybird on the balcony. 🙂
Well hello again! This post is partly about my failed attempt to do a climbing location hunt at Montserrat but also I wish to share with you my routine of cycling up to Tibidabo once a week a thing I do… It’s painful, pointless, and gets me close to a cardiac arrest every time I’ve done it. I reassure myself every time, as I tell myself “I’m so not in the mood for this today!” that “It’s OK if I don’t make it to the top this time, you have nothing to prove!” and then I actually convince myself to do “just a little bit further“. Can anyone relate or am I just bone idle?
Tibidabo 003
I wont lie, it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. I gave it a really hard slog this time around to beat my last time, and it really didn’t work out so well. In less distance (I think) and only shaved 1 minute off my overall trip time. Granted, last time I took a lot of stops and Strava stops counting when you’re still. This time around I didn’t stop as much, I certainly burnt more calories.
Well I did make some achievements in Strava terms but what really upset me is the longest stretch of them all I did 40 seconds slower than last week. That bummed me out (despite 27 achievements over last weeks time)! When I got to the top I treated myself to my very last Larabar (banana bread) it was squished a little sweaty and utterly delicious. I’d been saving it since I left the USA last summer. I was sad to eat it but also happy with the good memories I had with that flavour. All those great hikes and climbs I did, always knowing I had one at the bottom of my bag!
Climbing
Last few months I’ve been grounded from climbing, with a damaged tendon and some nerve impingement in my neck causing loss of sensation in my right forearm. Long and the short of that story is: I’ve had some physio to remedy this. It’s painful, and little and slow progress. But let’s stay positive! This week my physiotherapist told me I should try climbing again. I went online and decided that given the great weather, I’d go and find some locations nearby.
Climbing Location Hunt at Montserrat
As you may know, not all what you find online is true. Today ladies and gentlemen, I can atest to this false information. Granted I wont say I read everything up and down, but the overall read was that the location was good for climbing. Suffice to say that a couple of miles into the trail I find myself reading a Catalan signpost telling me that the climbing routes / areas are only open after 30th June. I carried on hiking, hoping to find a boulder or something to hang off of, but it was fairly naff to be honest. I hiked back and decided to ride the cool road up the monestary of Montserrat. Folks, it’s a fab ride, if it was just for the ride, I’d say it was worth it, but given I had hoped to climb I was a little underwhelmed. 🙁
…and Down Memory Lane
Some 8 years ago, I came to this very same place with a biking friend, I’m not sure if you remember this (if you’ve not been following my blog for 8 years, I’d understand).
Cue: Alex; some crazy red-headed Swedish dude who did parkour and had an amazing outlook on life who stumbled into my life that summer. I took him up here on our way to Andorra (technically the wrong direction but was a great ride up). I felt I should do the manditory photo at the same location he did his epic black flip off the memorial stone.
Anyhow onto more trivial things, I’m still loving my Sony RX100m4 and taking photos as often as I can.
