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Well, in summary I would definitely recommend Valencia as a city break! I was surprised as I wasn’t expecting it to be so beautiful! Valencia, often overlooked due to the popularity of Barcelona, is full of culture, beautiful architecture, and fabulous food! Due to flight cancellations, we had a convoluted journey, flying to Alicante and getting the train to Valencia. The train journey was actually quite nice and had lovely views. It was my first time traveling on trains in Europe and I enjoyed it…bring on interrailing at some point. What to do?
Warning: the steps are quite narrow and you are climbing 50m high, I wouldn’t recommend if you are scared of heights or get claustrophobic. Tip: they only take euros so be sure to bring 2euros.
We visited here on our last day so wandered round the site but did not pay to go in the museums/buildings. It is surrounded by some lovely gardens where we sunbathed and had a picnic before heading to the airport.
Eating
Any paella place is delicious. We wish we went to a more local place as this was very touristy but we didn’t book anywhere – whoops. It was still delicious and had a good 3 course deal.
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Two weekends ago I competed in my first race of the 2023 triathlon season. Over the next few months, I am just using each race as practice for the age group world championships in July. I can’t say I was feeling in the best shape for this race after 2 exhausting weeks of 8/9-7 placement most days. I was grateful that it was not a 6am race start, but a 11:30am race. Setting off from Nottingham at 9am, bringing my housemate along to support, we had a car journey full of some banging tunes trying to get rid of my pre-race nerves. When we arrived, I started putting my bike back together and realised I had made a big error, I had forgot to change my brake pads to the carbon ones (rim brake tings), so that put my carbon wheels out the window – good job I brought my normal wheels with me due to the forecasted wind. Registration done! Transition set up! What a lovely transition area it was, lots of space around each racked bike. Due to it being a track race, there was an opportunity to recce the bike course as it was quite ‘hairy’ with the bends. Unlike most athletes, I decided against this as I wanted to warm up properly for the first 5km run leg. My tummy was really playing up all morning and just before the race it decided to give me some lovely uterus cramps which was not ideal so I had to hunt down some paracetamol – oh to be a women! 11:15 – race briefing, explaining the route and the draft-legal rules. I had never done a draft legal race before so felt quite nervous about it, especially with the hairpin bends and the stronger winds on parts of the track. 11:30 – the gun goes! Feeling strong with my first 2km of 5 – running at a sub 4:00/km pace. I felt good and had it been a 5km TT without the bike or 2nd run after, I would have held this pace. However, I knew I needed energy in the tank for the rest of the race so I slowed the pace a little, still overtaking runners I felt confident in the race. T1 --> Bike course - I had been practising my flying mounts in the week leading up to the race, it was worth it… an almost successful flying mount but I couldn’t clip into my new pedals – frustrating but only a few seconds lost. Time for 8 laps on the bike. I think my lack of experience in draft legal bike racing showed. It became a bit of a solo ride, joining bike packs and either I couldn’t hold onto their pace, especially on the bends, or I wanted to pick up the pace a bit with other groups. This made the race quite a bit harder, mentally and also physically due to the wind exposed track. Cleats off, dismount… oops lost a shoe on the track on dismount, otherwise a smooth T2 into the 2nd run – 2.5km. The goal was to make up the places I lost on the bike, mission successful! I just kept pushing myself despite a bit of a stich, overtaking 7-9 girlies, bagging myself first in my age group and a qualification for the age group European duathlon next year… happy days – if I can afford it – Hamburg this year has broken my bank account a lot more than I thought. 12:30ish -race complete! Time for a refuel asap. My housemate and I drove to a little café in the Peak District for a lovely lunch with a live band which was even more of a treat.
Overall, it was a good day but I was absolutely exhausted by 4pm aha. |
RECIPES
RACE RECAPS TRAINING BESIDES RUNNING SELF CARE BACK TO SCHOOL OVERTRAINING THINGS I AM LOVING LATELY TRIATHLON NEW YEAR Month/year
August 2023
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