Portugal part 2

After the final event of the Portugal O meet, Piret and I parted ways from Neil and then travelled to our next location which was at a place called Pataias, which was about 2 hours drive, after a few wrong turns we finally got there. We were staying in a beach side town called São Pedro de Moel it was only about 15km from the event centre. Our hotel was a easy 2min walk to the beach so that was rather nice and the smell off the sea felt like we were on a summer hoilday!! Well if only it was a hoilday we had organised a couple of days training before the races started again on the Saturday so didnt really get to much time to relax.

I found our trainings really worthwhile as it gave us more time running with maps and also not to have pressures of a races on us. We did two trainings most days, one in the morning then one in the afternoon too. On the Friday we decided that we should try and get to both model events finished early so we could do some sightseeing in the afternoon. We didn’t really know anything to do in the area so we just headed for the closest big town which was a place called Leiria. It was rather fun trying to drive through the City centre but luckily we just decided to park in a car park building and be done with it. The city wasn’t really anything special but there was quite a cool castle on the hill so we walked up there and had a look around was quite cool as you could walk anywhere you wanted which I don’t think you could get in many old castles these days. I think we spent about an hour walking around Piret got a bit bored after a while but ohh well. We then headed back towards our hotel but stopped off at some place where they did glass blowing. It was pretty crazy to watch the guys shape the glass which such ease. The stuff they were making was sooo cool would love to have brought some but the 200euro price tag was just a bit too much for me.

On the way home we stopped off at this lookout point which was overlooking the beach and had a bit of a picnic which was just rolls, cheese and chips rather exciting really. They did taste rather nice all together thou. After a late lunch it was time for a bit of exploring on the rocks above the sea you could get a wicked view down the cliff, we found this safe place to look down and was watching the surf smash into the rocks below us, I told P to wait and we would get a cool photo when the surf smashes up and the water splashes kind of close to us, so we waited and waited and the finally this wave looked like a goodie and man was it. The wave smashed into the rocks then completely covered me in water, P had more sense and saw it coming so she bolted!! But yeah that was the end of our sightseeing as I had to go and get some dry clothes on. The dumbest thing was the photo didn’t even get the wave ohh well next time maybe!


For the first time in the time we had been in Portugal it started to rain just in time for the races!! I guess It was trying to get as ready for going home to UK. I have to say it was a bit nicer to run in than the heat which we had in training. The first of the races we were doing was the most important of the two, it was a Middle distance event which was a WRE. I once again had a later start so had to wait around for a while. I didn’t start off to bad in till number 4, well I was going ok heading to the control then saw somebody going over this hill I told myself not to look at them and keep going which is what I did well kind of, I then took off to the right when I should have been going left running through this open area then looping back on myself so really I just did this pointless circle. I have no idea what I was thinking and just couldn’t work out why I had done it!! I think I lost 6min on this mistake which is shocking considering it was just soo stupid. After the first Pivot control I kept loosing concentration and loosing where I was on the map which then meant I would have to stop and figure it out!! Not to sure why I was doing this as I didn’t feel tired I mainly think it was cos I was trying to run to fast to make up for my mistake. I made a silly little mistake on 19 and also 24 so all and all my run was just filled with stupid mistakes!!!

After the race we went back to the hotel with the plan to head to the night sprint later on that night but in the end we not going as we were just too tired and also it was quite a long drive from our hotel to the event.

Sunday we packed our stuff and headed to the last race, both hoping for some good runs to make up for the others that weren’t so good. We had quite a long race with 16km on a rather sandy map, I started of shit, throughout the middle I was shit and then well finished rather shit!!! Quite a dumb way to finish the week!!! At least Piret did a bit better than me she was 4th I think so she was kind of happy with that!!! We then had a nice drive back to Lisbon where we had to drive to drop off our rental car then went back into Lisbon for a night. We spent most of our time walking from our hotel into town then going and getting some dinner then just on the underground back home again so we didn’t really see too much would have been nicer to get a bit more time and have a decent explore as it looked like a cool little city. All and all we had a great time in Portugal and hope to return next year for the same events.


Heaps of pics are up too, still gotta try and sort out maps some time soon