Time from BCN airport to Sants Train station

You have no control over whether your plane in BCN is going to be on time, so you need to hedge your bet re when you will actually get to the train station. The downtown main train station is some distance from the airport in the burbs.

I was in Madrid and Barcelona about a month ago, and I relied on Rick's Barcelona and Madrid guidebooks. The Spain guidebook is a thousand pages, but you can get separate smaller guidebooks for Barcelona and Madrid, lightening your load. He's got it all described in those.

Get the Renfe app, you will be able to buy a ticket the day of arrival.

Thanks everyone. The app is a great idea.
Is it better to stay in Barcelona and catch a train to Madrid another day? It seems that will take away the stress. I hadn't considered that before.

Hi, I would recommend you just buy the AVE ticket at Sants once you get there, so that you will not risk missing your train. There are many daily departures for the AVE to Madrid, like every hour. It should not be too difficult to do it all on the same day. There is a train the goes directly from terminal 2 at el Prat airport to Sants station, takes about 20 min.

Carlos's plan is the efficient way to handle it. To see how much that efficiency is going to cost you, go to renfe.com and price an AVE ticket from Barcelona to Madrid for today or tomorrow. Assume you'll pay the highest price you see. Now price the ticket for your actual Day 2. The cost difference is the price you pay for not having to check into Barcelona hotels twice on this trip--which is definitely worth something. A second benefit is that moving on to Madrid on Day 1 allows you to accomplish something very useful on Day 1 so you don't have to waste time doing that on a day when you aren't jetlagged.

That is helpful. It seems that I might be able to make it on time to the train station with 3 hours in between.

Waiting to buy the train tickets the day off is looking to be very expensive. I would rather not have to do that just because of the price. :(
I'm still struggling to decide. I'm wanting to take the risk and just book a train ticket for 2:30 pm the day of arrival or traveling another day.

Just always remember, it doesn't happen a "lot", but always possible. We spent 2 hours on a ground hold at JFK about 3 weeks ago. My daughter spent 11 Plus hours on the ground at Goose Bay in January - and never made it to her destination. These are extremes, but be prepared to lose the value of your advance discount train tickets w/o complaining.