Sur le Mer

The light is different here, as Henri Matisse said when he was living at Coulioure a few miles down the road. It could be the combination of humidity from the sea and the high desert climbing the eastern Pyrennes, or perhaps the way the light comes off the sea after a light shower clears the air, but the light is different and the waters of the Mediterranean seem bluer.

Then again it could be all of the wine I'm drinking.

Today I was looking for a 2 hour aerobic jaunt through the Rousillon Plain along the coast, something scenic and something to loosen up my legs after a day off yesterday. But not too much as tomorrow I have a date with Steve and his coach and maybe a couple other better cyclists than I. But today is a nice run to Argeles on the mountain road and up the coast via St. Cyprien to Canet de Rousillon, then back south to Saleilles and Elne and then up to our village.

These roads are becoming very familiar, but each time I ride them I have a sense that what I'm seeing is changing rapidly and will likely be gone in a few years. The expanses of saltwater marshes and sandy flats and unobstructed beaches spreading to the sea are being covered by condos. Very St. Petersburg. Florida, not Russia. I rode there less than a year ago with some local clubs and the experience is shockingly similar. Not until one leaves the coast and heads inland and then leaves the large departmental road for a tiny tarmac with a faded sign for Mas du Moulin, does the Florida imprint fade and the Languedoc-Rousillon and the Cote de Vermeil reassert itself.

Reigning over everything is the Pic de Canigou, rising 9000 feet over the valley, covered in snow despite the spring temperatures and sun in the plain. My compass on clear days when the Alberes have receded too far to be of help and alien ranges lurch up north and west of Perpignan. Sand, sea, mountain, wind, snow and rain; there's an elemental reality that creates a link to the earth. My sweat and pain is mixed in as I ride circles in this mystical place, full of light and thought and the whispers of ten eons of men toiling in pain and bathing in this beauty.

2:15, 38.1, 820ft

I lost my first 20 workouts or so last night when I vicariously experienced a 'memory fault' through my pda. 'Push this button to erase all memory on your computer.' There being nothing else to do, I pushed it and was back at square one with my data. Of course, it doesn't really matter. My legs, lungs and heart know exactly what I've been doing and I remember as well, no memory fault there. So I'll be using these pages to hold a bit more of my data, figuring that the likelihood of Blogger losing it's memory are smaller than mine.