I am heading home on a flight from Barcelona, Spain after spending the past week living in the Old Town of Girona and cycling and running in some of the most ideal conditions and landscape I have had the pleasure to train in. This was a trip I had planned since last fall. It was designed as a 40th birthday present/trip for George, but being the location and the extent of the travel, I obviously could not keep it a secret. It has been something that I have been looking forward to do for years. Ever since I met George and he had the desire to go to Girona, the second home of so many pro cyclists like Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton, Michael and Dede Barry and Christian Vande Velde to name a few. George had an “in” in Girona as he became friendly with Christian’s wife, Leah Vande Velde in Boulder a few years back, so he contacted her and told her we would be visiting in April. Talk about an ideal trip! I had an apartment right in the Old Town, on the river and we had connections so that we could easily find rides and meet up with people that have lived there for years. Of course, nothing in life goes exactly as planned, so it ended up that the week we planned was also the Tour of Georgia, so while Leah was in Girona, many of the cyclists were in America racing. Oh well…no worries…would have been cool to see some of the best cyclists in the world training in Girona, but we still had Leah to meet up with and get info from and we still had each other, and we travel really well together. Oh, and one more thing…George was leading the Spring Series Cycling Event in New York, and he wasn’t just leading his classification, but he was leading THE ENTIRE series…Pro 1, 2, 3 division as well. So, we stayed in New York the weekend we were supposed to leave, George raced and won (again) and we headed out to Spain. No worries…except that we found out that racing at the last race of the series (at the end of our trip) could clinch the series win and he could celebrate with the team and receive the accolades of an awesome accomplishment. Like I said, nothing goes exactly as planned. Can’t complain, I guess…we were in Girona, which is unbelievable as I’ll describe, BUT I felt really bad about George missing that last weekend of the spring series. It’s a big accomplishment and I would have liked to be there the last day as well. Did I say that nothing in life goes exactly as planned?So we packed our bags and headed to Spain. Left Sunday at 5PM arrived in Barcelona Monday at 7:30AM. Wow…I hadn’t been to a foreign country in a while. Getting off the plane, getting the bike boxes, trying to find the shuttle to the rental car, trying to find our way out, trying to get to Girona (neither of us speak the language) it’s not exactly easy. When we arrived in Girona and FINALLY found our apartment (Girona‘s Old Town is lined with cobble streets and cars are restricted from coming in. It is literally an ancient city that can sometimes seem like a maze!) Once we found it, we realized that we couldn’t get in to our apartment, SO we headed to a pay phone and call David Lloret, the owner of the apartment (Riverside Apartments). After David gave us the instructions, we found a parking spot outside the cobbled city and dragged our luggage to our apartment and up the 3 flights of stairs in a stairway a little wider than George’s shoulders! After that, we went back to the car and got the bike boxes, making and absolute racket dragging them over cobblestones and to the apartment. One by one we got them upstairs…they just fit up the stairway! By the time we walked to the market and bought some groceries, then ate dinner (people start sitting down for dinner at 8:30 PM) we went to bed and crashed for the night. No riding that day.
So I’ll break up this trip report as it may become too lengthy to take. This is entitled Part one and I’ll cover the first two riding days after our travel day. Day One of training: We meet up with Leah Vande Velde. OK, we were supposed to meet Leah at 10 AM at the Cathedral (right near our apartments). After running up and down several ancient flights of stairs, going back to the apartment (up 3 flights) and e-mailing her to find out we were in the wrong spot (we had no phone, but she had a Blackberry) and going back out and all around the Cathedral we FINALLY found her an hour late as she waited with Uma, her new baby…nice job, eh? Leah was so patient and so great to us. We met up for some café con Leche and went over some cycling maps with routes from her trek Travel days (she was a guide). I was psyched. We had the whole trip planned as far as which routes we would do. This day was a loop out of Girona towards Ells Angels, a church nearby. This was a perfect first day. One gentle 12K climb right out of town and rollers through the countryside where cars are rarely, if ever seen, and little ancient towns that pop up every 10-15K. Wild flowers were out and the landscape was green with perfect blue
skies. We rode 3 hours 15 min this day pretty easily (perfect for jet lag) and I ran 7 miles off the bike on the bike path in Girona leading Northwest through town as George took a nap. Once I returned, I had lunch waiting (thanks to George) we chilled a bit and went out to dinner. This night we went to Boira, recommended by Leah and by Michael Barry’s Blog page (our bible on the trip). We had Tapas, which is basically appetizers. We ordered many plates, not realizing that dinner was served upstairs starting at 8:30 PM. We were in bed and asleep by midnight ready for the next day of riding. A loop that including a long climb to the town of St. Hillary and down from there to some other towns before heading back to Girona.
Wednesday wake up at 8:00 AM and our soon to be typical morning of Omelets, toast, “jambon curado” and queso with café con Leche, of course (made by George). As I mentioned earlier, the apartment was located on the river that runs through town. It is as European as I can imagine. It was very simply decorated with a little kitchen that overlooked the river. We realized how “gluttonous” as we called it, Americans really are. Not that I can exclude myself from this description, because I am American and am gluttonous as well. We (Americans in general) do live “over-the-top” compared to the people living in Spain and in much of Europe, for that matter. Living in this little town really brought this to light. After breakfast we took our “civilized departure” of around 10:30 AM. The ride would end up being 4 hours long. We ended up having a hard time exiting the city (FINALLY got the hang of it on Thursday when Leah took us out). We got a bit lost and met up with two men that were on a ride. One was a cyclist that lived in Girona and one was a Turkish man that was a former pro triathlete. They took us through the country and got us to the road we needed to be on. Once we got on that road, our friends pulled off and George and I started our climb to St. Hillary. The climb was about 18-20K long which ended up being steady/hard climb, but nothing too terrible. We climbed it side-by-side. After about an hour and a half, we finished the climb and got some Cokes and took a break in the town of St. Hillary before descending down a windy and rolling descent another 24K past St. Hillary. Again, this ride was recommended on Michael Barry’s sight as well as by Leah. It was beautiful. The roads were empty and the scenery was green with wildflowers in the foothills and wooded as we climbed up the mountain. In the distance were the snow-capped Pyrenees Mtns. The ride was a perfect mix of rollers, a long climb, a descent followed by more rollers. I was hurting a bit on the rollers into town as George got a “second wind” and declared that he felt so good on the rollers 
that he could just hammer through them… ”GREAT”, I thought! Just what I want to do right now! I hung on and he seemed to ease up a bit knowing that many days were ahead. Once back at the apartment, I ran 5 miles off the bike with the last half hard/tempo, and again lunch was made at the apartment by George before he headed for a nap. What a day! We wandered around town that night and finally sat down for dinner at about 9-9:30 PM, then headed out to a café for some café con leche and gelato before heading to bed around midnight again. Living the “Euro pro life” is pretty sweet!Pictures:
Top: Girona, where our apartment was;
Next in order: Countryside outside town, George climbing St. Hillary, me riding near Ells Angels
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