Day 56 – EU – Spain [St Jordi D’Alfama to Tarragona]

30/01/20

45km

  From Sant Jordi D’Alfama (Spain) to Tarragona (Spain)

Europe

Varied run, a nuclear power plant, the largest chemical hub in Europe… and some country roads

I was very glad to set out running this morning. I was looking forward to the long run and to the rest-day that will ensue. I have mentioned before that in the past 15 days, I have had issues with my sleep, occasionally (noisy hotels, storm etc..) and the debt has resulted into some sort of sleepiness that I have not managed to shake off yet.

Whilst I am good while running, and never run out of juice, the issue is the post-run time. I struggle to stay awake and end up sleepily doing things… feeling quite useless! Hopefully the rest-day tomorrow will be an opportunity to sleep aplenty. I also hope to be able to do some sightseeing around Tarragona.

Today was the most I saw of industrial estates since I started the world run. I ran past the Vandellos nuclear power plant first. And before the entry into Tarragona I ran through… “the largest chemical hub in Southern Europe”. As I left Villaseca, I had about 7km through the chemical cluster before I reached Tarragona. And then it hit me that 2 weeks ago, there was a fatal explosion in this area, which claimed a few lives… It would have made me run faster if I had realised it then.

In between I enjoyed some nice country running. I had a few tough kilometers, around the 30km mark, on a Camino (trail) made of sand and gravel. Not BoB’s favourite, it was quite hard to push it through. Even though there is always a risk the practicability is not ideal for BoB, I like trying my luck on the trails. They do provide a nice break for the legs and feet.

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: