The day started with supreme athletic coach Murdo giving me some exercise tips. I realized I go at exercise too hard and fast, mostly to get it over with because I’ve got so much to do, that relaxing the muscles is better than working them hard, that going slow doing fewer numbers engages them more than going fast, that warming up first and connecting with the body is important for all physical activity, including even walking.

My morning exercises need a re-tooling. When it comes to relaxing tight muscles, especially in my hamstrings, hips and glutes, which are perennial problems, I have fear of pain which prevents me from relaxing. Why does knowing it’s just a thought not help me more with that? Because even though I know I’m the creator, I see (and feel) the reality of pain, and I don’t like pain (which is also just a thought).

Actually it was quite a day for exercise, as I walked all the way to Altea up the hill to the church to meet Holly, Marian, Gillian and Rose, who had stayed around after the training. It was tough trying to find a path through the buildings up the hill, and it turns out they were watching me down below from way up on the cliff near the church; they must have seen my green Boston Celtics hat bobbing along.

We went into the church, and it was my first time in there. Gorgeous. I was struck by the opulence and how much money must have gone into that, and into so many fancy churches around the world, and I had the thought that Jesus must be turning over in his grave.

We wandered the beautiful, narrow streets of old Altea for a bit, talking about future Spain training opportunities, as Holly lives in Barcelona, and Marian in Madrid. They are making plans with Gabriela to come. I would love to work with Gabriela again.

We talked about what it was like to present to a mixed language audience, as when Gabriela and I did that in Puerto Rico, and I also did it twice in Denmark and twice in Germany. Along with Amanda, Sheela, Mark, Katja and the other Amanda now in Malaga, a Spain 3P contingent is starting to grow.

We ate a nice lunch in a restaurant outside balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, which was really beautiful. I realized I was late to meet Katja before she left, because we hadn’t had a chance to talk yet at all. So I walked-ran back to Albir and met Katja on the beach, had a nice talk, took a little swim, said goodbye to Katja and Murdo, had dinner and went to bed later than I wanted to. Nice day.