Tometaro Jr. and Father Bunny climbed "Turo de L'Home"

With only one day left in Barcelona and fearing a whole month without extreme adventures both Tometaro and my father decided, just like if you think it's chocolate ice cream time to ride up to Turo de L'Home mountain.

Located in Montseny Massif is one of the highest mountains at 1712 meters. Well known by cyclist and sport freaks from Catalonia its classical climb starts at Sant Celoni and last for approximately 26 kilometers.

It's one of the hardest mountain passes in Catalonia and also in Spain with a difficulty grade of 299 (www.altimetrias.net)

They spent 1:54 minutes in a non stop climb from Sant Celoni to the summit where they took some pictures. 

The last 6 kilometers are very hard, not only because of the gradient but the road condition. The surface is uneven, plenty of holes and cracks with loose stones than makes the bike to lose traction and fear of a flat tyre is a constant feeling in your head.

Father bunny was forced to use the 50 x 25 combination a couple of times and for real the are a pair of slopes that due to gradient and road conditions are not easy with 52/53 x 25.

Almost 75 % of the climb HR was over 80% of MAX Hr. So they took the ride seriously. 

And to confirm they're are great morons, temperature was around 33 Celsius, no other cyclist were on the road (nor climbing or descending it) and only three cars and two cows were around. 

侍 Samurai - FB and Miffa running

In Barcelona, every year we celebrate one of the biggest run on earth, with almost 60k runners this year this is more than 2 times Tokyo's marathon.

So Miffa and me got into our Samurai outfits and we run it in the baby stroller category with great success.

We missed the Marathon, well, not really.

Past February 27th Tokyo marathon was held in out favorite city. I ran several kilometers with my father in a rainy, snowy and cold day where my father missed to accomplish his dream completely.

Since that time he has been not running, except for the last month. He got injured two week prior to Tokyo that time and the decision of running 42 something wasn’t the cleverest for him.

Anyways he started to train again, a month or so ago with more injures, what can you expect from an old man?

But, we manage to run with him, Draculina and me for the last FIFTEEN kilometers of a very nice run. May be he is not happy enough but we are delighted with so many kilometers with such a low effort (we were on his back).

Draculina is now a triahtlete

My sister Draculina has abandoned her past life of endless parties until next morning and has become a great sport freak.

After Father’s Bunny debut in Calafell’s Triathlon Draculina was dying to make her debut and Father decided that Barcelona’s trial was the perfect place.

They went to the start line – located in Barcelona’s beach down under Hotel Arts – where at 6:30 am they need to left their stuff in the box prior to their start.

A great contrast with more than 2000 athletes and their bicycles and several hundred drunken tourist lying on the beach with alcohol bottles. This is the true meaning of the Visc a Barcelona (Council campaign to promote the joy of living in this city).

Anyways, Draculina did a poor job in the swim leg (like father bunny) a no so good cycling leg, because of her great ears who created some drag (definitely we should work in aero dynamics for the next time).

Our average speed of 34.24 km/h was no so good but the faces of the people who we overtook really fast were funny when some of the realized that FB’s bike was carrying extra weight.

Finally as experienced runners we managed to pass another 50 or 60 people to end in a no so bad 400 out of 2000.

And of course another world bunny record has been set.

Volvo Bonaqua Sprint Run - Failed Mission (English)

While my running mates were preparing things for the 2009 cursa de bombers I was getting up to run my first trail race ever. I was quite confident in my possibilities because of our training spot and intensive hill running.

The day before I spent more than three hours drawing the race path till the 8th kilometre and downloading a DEM (Digital Elevation Model) to figure up what the profile was.

Now I am writing this review because I don’t want to forget about the experience. Even after the marathon my face was better and my gesture showed less suffering than today.

Of course I have done several mistakes the first one was not to take some water or isotonic drink for the first eight km. 26 to 29 Celsius and 98 % humidity running in a tropical (or may sub tropical forest) is not what we found in our Parc Güel. Another one was starting the run at a moderate pace (3:40 minutes a kilometre) that put me in the middle of nowhere. I thought that people wanted to commit self suicide but there were fighting to arrive to the first kilometre mark the sooner as possible. And there was a good reason to do so. A narrow path, sometimes just enough for one person makes quite difficult to overpass.

From approximately 1.6 to 2.5 the path was climbing up to the top but I was able to run at a modest but constant pace, but from the 4 to the 4.8 my legs were totally burnt out by the ladders that appeared in that section. Unable to run and blocked by some runners I got to the top (about 260 meters) totally exhausted.

The descent was not better, with my legs aching and full of lactic acid I started a suicide downhill section from 5 to 7.5. Passing people out of the track and having some severe warning with some stones that were in the mood to break my ankles. Finally about the 6th we arrived to a “normal road” and I was able to maintain a pace of about 4:45 minutes a kilometre (enough to pass quite a few people).

We have to cross some water to get into the Pui O beach and about 700 meters running on the beach (with my shoes full of water and sand, excellent). I hate running on the beach and I try to imitate the more experienced people, so I moved to the wet side and crossed the first check point in the top 10 or top 15 according to a friend who was there taking pictures.

The winner made 48 minutes and I made an impressive 52. Not bad. There were only 4 kilometers left.

Damn it!. Now we have about 700 meters of running / walking on the cliffs, jumping from one slippery rock to another one. This is something that I did not count on.

Ok, that’s not my best but I can manager. I try to find the path and I felt down into the sea. No problem but my right knee took the hit and is wounded by the small mussels that gave me quite a deeper cut. The cliffs ended, but now we have to run over a rounded rocks beach – I say no way, I must keep my ankles for more heroic battles-

The incident, my poor attitude to run over that rounded rocks beach made that most of the people who was behind passed me on that section.

Finally the river loop was one kilometre uphill following a river with big slippery rocks, some climbing sections and even a rope ladder. The first 700 meters I even got to pass some people but every step has to be measured carefully, my knee is bleeding and you have to use your arms and hands to secure yourself and to find the better way. (Thank good I bought that gloves)

About four five people overtook me on the last 300 metres but a short road section of about 200 meter were enough to pass two of them.

Again a suicide downhill section when I was able to maintain my position but…

The same damn rounded rocks beach and cliff section. I decided to walk, I was too tired just to think and to look where my feet were landing and I wanted no more wounds.

I finish the race exhausted but above all with the feeling that I have failed my mission, with an angry daughter bunny who saw me on the top positions on the 8th and that finally was deceived when I plunged on the ranking.

I did my best, I was more tired than ever and I suffered quite a lot, but I did not expect that and, of course, I was not trained for that.

I decided to catch a taxi and go to visit the Giant Buddha so I missed the finish party. Well I am not a very social person and besides I was quite sad.