Travelogue De Spain

My journey to Spain started with a pretty long but equally enjoyable flight that I took with my mom and dad. We landed in Spain and immediately set out to the condo we rented right by the ocean. I loved being right over the water, and the highlight of my mornings and sometimes evenings used to be spending time on the lanai listening to the ocean.

On Friday, which was the first day of our visit, I met with Alvaro, who is the owner, and operator coach of RS Academy for Tapas to find out what our plan was going to be for the following days. We walked back to his shop. It is also the place that he works out of, so we checked it out. He briefed us about the training schedule and sent us the directions of where we were supposed to meet for the training days. The first few days we just toured around Barcelona, enjoyed sitting outside the condo, and got to know and enjoy the city. We went to a race at Rocco’s Ranch which was super fun. On Christmas Eve we went sailing which is one of my favorite things because I love the ocean. I even helped the captain hoist up the sails and drive the boat. We spent almost half of the day on the water relaxing and enjoying ourselves. It was so peaceful I even took a nap. On Christmas Day, we went to the amusement park nearby, and then the next day we toured Barcelona, went downtown, and walked around the shops to explore the city’s markets.

After spending a few days relaxing and having fun around the city, it was time to get to work and the reason we came to Barcelona for….. training. So, when training started, I got up early in the morning, had my breakfast, and went to the first location that Alvaro told us about. The first day we planned to focus on drills.

When we got there, I took my leather suit out of the car and realized that it had gotten stiff because of the cold atmosphere of the airplane and it didn’t fit me anymore. It was so stiff that I couldn’t even get into it. The suit was badly out of shape, the back hump piece was twisted and its shape was completely ruined. So then Alvaro let me put on his leather suit, which was obviously bigger than me. They used duct tape to tighten it up around the stomach, legs, and arms and make it fit my size, at least enough for me to sit on the bike, but things weren’t working out well.

Alvaro then ran to his shop and looked for suits that could fit me, but none of them did. Alvaro then called a man, who was the father of one of the kids who also trains with RS Academy and asked if he had a suit I could use. He brought a suit for me and although it was still a little big, it was the best fit and worked great. He saved the day, as I used that suit for the rest of the training days. It was really nice that so many people came to help me even though I was not from there.

I had only done drills a couple of times before and it was my first day in training, but I had actually gotten my elbow down. The dress mishap didn’t get my spirits down because I was incredibly excited. It was so awesome for me to get on a sportbike to do consistent drills all day and reaching that level was very rewarding.

It was a tiring day so when we came back, we just relaxed and went shopping. I could see that my parents were also exhausted but they loved the whole experience as much as I did.

The second day of training was going to be on a track up in the mountains, a little bit further away from where we did drills. I was surprised when we got there and quickly realized how cold it was. Usually, here we don’t go on tracks unless the weather is in the sixties, over there it was somewhere around forty degrees. I couldn’t drink enough hot chocolate and my hands were freezing. Every day there were struggles and there were small wins when I overcame those struggles. So, it took me a while to break through the mental block but I did with the help of Alvaro who helped me warm up my stiff hands by putting my gloves in tire warmers. After that, they felt warm and I was able to get to work. It seemed like Alvaro had a solution for everything.

Having my hands warmed up felt like I was ready for anything so then I hopped on and trained for the rest of the day. Alvaro told me I was improving and he could see that I wanted to win because my body positioning and speed were getting better and faster. Alvaro, Alex who was another racer, and the co-coach Sergi all were happy to see me break out of my block and enjoy the training and battling out on the track.

It was a really good day, a little cold but I loved training in the beautiful mountains.

The third day was back to drills, so I did the usual, had breakfast, sat by the ocean for a bit, and then left for the training. When I got there, the training was made much more fun by adding circle drills, figure eights, and some wheelies. We were doing breaking drills where we would come up to a corner and then break hard. So, this way we could power through it, doing a late break and an early acceleration which made it easy to go through tight corners. It requires a lot of practice but I learned it and it was fun. Learning these strategies was new to me and practicing like that in Alvaro’s guidance was super exciting.

By the end of the training that day it was just me and Sergi doing wheelies and chasing each other around the parking lot just practicing and having fun.

The fourth day was the final day of training when we went to a track down south, which was closer to the ocean so it was warmer compared to the track in the mountains. The weather was around sixty degrees which was perfect for me and there were a bunch of other kids there. The day was sponsored by Tamoil, and the owner of Tamoil was there too. There was also a professional racer, Iker Garcia there as an instructor so I could feel the competition and pressure of the final day.

The final day was really fun with all the people there. The enthusiasm of the other kids and instructors made it exciting. The training was the usual passing in corners, starts, and stops, getting our body positioning down and speeding up. Iker and Alvarao commented on how good I was doing and told me I had potential to be really competitive if I continue to train. He told me that I could come back and train more and race in Spain.

By the end of the training, I got a certificate of completion. Alvaro gave me an RS Academy Medal and I also got a gift bag from Tamoil. I know there are still things that I need to practice, and even though this training in Spain may have ended, I am still on my life’s journey to make myself better each day. Those four days of training in Spain were very rewarding as I learned a lot of things about racing, the areas I need to improve on, and next steps to continue to get better and grow. I can’t wait to go back and continue training and racing.