Friday, 6 November, 2009

This being Friday my employer lets us off at 2 o’clock and so I can get in a longer run on the mountain. The mountain is part of the Serrelada Litoral (literally the Coast Range). It consists of a series of low mountains, no more than 500 metres high, running parallel to the coast north-east of Barcelona. I start off at the Fornaca after some stretching and the first part of the run covers the same terrain as the previous day’s run. At Can Boquet instead of taking the road down to Vilassar I follow another road that continues climbing. I keep going to the Font de Sant Mateu (Sant Mathew’s spring). It takes me about 40 minutes to jog up the mountain from the Fornaca to Sant Mateu. At the spring I stop and stretch for 5 minutes or so. The remainder of my run is all downhill. I follow most of same route that I took going up except that at the town’s cemetery I turn to the right and head down to Can Rafart. The last two minutes of the run is on paved road and very steep. It is easy to build up speed and the knees and thighs take a hard pounding. Later at home sitting in an easy chair and writing my notes I can feel a slight ache in my knees. Running in the mountain is good for building leg strength but you have to be careful not to get hurt.