Where's Bertie? He's in a car park about 100m away from the beach at a place that Google Maps tells me is called Canet de Berenguer. It's just by Sagunto. Exact location: 39.67661, -0.20457.
Weather: Light cloud with a few sunny intervals late this afternoon. Mid-teens.
After a slightly disturbed night (there was some really loud music coming from some venue nearby), I was up on the dot of 0630 today, needing to fit in a 27km run and get back in time to shower and breakfast before leaving the campsite by the noon deadline.
I'd plotted a circuit that I intended to repeat 3 times, but when I reached Bétera I thought I'd check out the cycle route that runs NE of the town and, in a series of "I'll just go a little bit further" my watch had ticked over to 11km before I turned back.
I wouldn't be exaggerating one bit to say that hundreds of cyclists passed me on that route. After a week with a sore something-behind-the-knee (not the same something-behind-the-knee as I suffered after the Lakeland 50 last year, as this was the right leg), I was run/walking on a regime of 500m/60s today*, and during one of those 60 second intervals I counted 25 bikes pass me. During the subsequent 3 minutes there were 55. As far as I could make out there was no organised event - it just seemed to be a really popular location for Saturday club rides.
Cyclists. Lots and lots of them.
Views of hills
I also ran through a large military zone, which was pretty interesting in itself.
Back at the entrace of the campsite, I continued straight on past, up a hill that my legs perhaps didn't much appreciate at that point. That led me onto a network of dirt roads, with rubbish-strewn verges, and plots of land and houses that wouldn't have looked out of place in a developing country.
At the end of all that I was back at Bertie in such good time that we beat the departure deadline by half an hour, although admittedly I spent far longer in the shower than I did chosing today's destination.
The location I'd selected was only half an hour away, and we travelled here via a cheap petrol station (148.5/litre) and a Lidl, neither of which was more than a few metres out of our way.
The car park we came to is a smart one, operating on a pay-and-display basis in summer. It's not the sort of place I'd expect motorhomes to be tolerated, but there's an informal notice by the entrance in which the council (in four languages) asks that motorhomers don't use the small litter bins in this car park, but gives details of where domestic waste/recycling bins can be found locally. That seems to me to be a pretty good indication that we're okay to join the handful of other vans here. There is only one car here, so the facility clearly isn't otherwise in demand at this time of year.
As for Canet de Berenguer, we've only walked up and down a few kilometres of the beachside promenade, but from what we've seen it's very much a Spanish second-home sort of a place - which is to say that it's largely deserted at this time of year. Being the weekend there are a few people around, and a handful of restaurants are open, but the vast majority of properties and businesses look to be shut up for the winter.
Huge beach!
A not-busy promenade
At the risk of making ourselves sound Philistinesque, not only did we opt not to go into Valencia whilst we were parked for two nights within a short walk of a metro station, but we did so during the run up to their major festival (Fallas), during which they have daily fireworks displays (even in daylight, apparently, which is a bit bizarre). I'm not sure if fireworks are generally popular in this region at this time of year due to the festival, but all afternoon there have been kids nearby playing (under supervision) with mini-, child-safe-fireworks. This led me and Mick into a discussion about childhood experiences with bangers, and what modern health and safety would think about our respective antics.
For Conrad, as requested.
(*I'm training for a 24-hour event (running as many times as you can around a 10km circuit in 24 hours), and I most certainly won't be running all of that, so run/walking is entirely appropriate training for my current objectives. In the absence of the something-behind-the-knee (which turned out to be fine today), I would be doing 1km/60s on my long runs anyway.)
Weather: Light cloud with a few sunny intervals late this afternoon. Mid-teens.
After a slightly disturbed night (there was some really loud music coming from some venue nearby), I was up on the dot of 0630 today, needing to fit in a 27km run and get back in time to shower and breakfast before leaving the campsite by the noon deadline.
I'd plotted a circuit that I intended to repeat 3 times, but when I reached Bétera I thought I'd check out the cycle route that runs NE of the town and, in a series of "I'll just go a little bit further" my watch had ticked over to 11km before I turned back.
I wouldn't be exaggerating one bit to say that hundreds of cyclists passed me on that route. After a week with a sore something-behind-the-knee (not the same something-behind-the-knee as I suffered after the Lakeland 50 last year, as this was the right leg), I was run/walking on a regime of 500m/60s today*, and during one of those 60 second intervals I counted 25 bikes pass me. During the subsequent 3 minutes there were 55. As far as I could make out there was no organised event - it just seemed to be a really popular location for Saturday club rides.
Back at the entrace of the campsite, I continued straight on past, up a hill that my legs perhaps didn't much appreciate at that point. That led me onto a network of dirt roads, with rubbish-strewn verges, and plots of land and houses that wouldn't have looked out of place in a developing country.
At the end of all that I was back at Bertie in such good time that we beat the departure deadline by half an hour, although admittedly I spent far longer in the shower than I did chosing today's destination.
The location I'd selected was only half an hour away, and we travelled here via a cheap petrol station (148.5/litre) and a Lidl, neither of which was more than a few metres out of our way.
The car park we came to is a smart one, operating on a pay-and-display basis in summer. It's not the sort of place I'd expect motorhomes to be tolerated, but there's an informal notice by the entrance in which the council (in four languages) asks that motorhomers don't use the small litter bins in this car park, but gives details of where domestic waste/recycling bins can be found locally. That seems to me to be a pretty good indication that we're okay to join the handful of other vans here. There is only one car here, so the facility clearly isn't otherwise in demand at this time of year.
As for Canet de Berenguer, we've only walked up and down a few kilometres of the beachside promenade, but from what we've seen it's very much a Spanish second-home sort of a place - which is to say that it's largely deserted at this time of year. Being the weekend there are a few people around, and a handful of restaurants are open, but the vast majority of properties and businesses look to be shut up for the winter.
At the risk of making ourselves sound Philistinesque, not only did we opt not to go into Valencia whilst we were parked for two nights within a short walk of a metro station, but we did so during the run up to their major festival (Fallas), during which they have daily fireworks displays (even in daylight, apparently, which is a bit bizarre). I'm not sure if fireworks are generally popular in this region at this time of year due to the festival, but all afternoon there have been kids nearby playing (under supervision) with mini-, child-safe-fireworks. This led me and Mick into a discussion about childhood experiences with bangers, and what modern health and safety would think about our respective antics.
(*I'm training for a 24-hour event (running as many times as you can around a 10km circuit in 24 hours), and I most certainly won't be running all of that, so run/walking is entirely appropriate training for my current objectives. In the absence of the something-behind-the-knee (which turned out to be fine today), I would be doing 1km/60s on my long runs anyway.)
The shorts: très élégant, or in Spanish muy elegant. I tend to think of shorts as being above the knee, but no matter.
ReplyDeleteI also generally think of shorts as being above the knee, but they're not full length, capris or plus fours, which leaves me to conclude they are 'short trousers' and thus fall under the term 'shorts'.
DeleteCan I ask what you use to plan your runs, particularly if you're in an area you don't know?!
ReplyDeleteI use three resources:
DeleteUsually just looking at the Open Cycle Map for the area (or if we're in the UK, then the OS map) and chosing a route that looks sensible works out well.
Depending on our surroundings (and particularly useful in Spain where it tends to be well used), I may also look at routes on Wikiloc, which I then download to mapping on my phone.
I also sometimes look at Segments on Strava to see where other runners have gone (even more useful now that the 'explore' section of Strava includes heat maps, so you can see where is popular for people to run in a particular area).
Many thanks Gayle - that's really useful.
Delete