Ides of March.

[Bierzo Baggie]

One of the things that caught my attention on this forum was its high-brow literary content. Hey, even old Will Shakespeare himself writes here. Must admit that I’m a bit of a Shakespeare dunce. We had to study MacBeth at school and to try and maintain the attention of a class full of 14-year olds the teacher had the bright idea of showing us Polanski’s version on video. It was great, loads of blood, lesbian witches....I became a Polanski convert almost immediately....Shakespeare continues to escape me though.

Anyway, the expression “Ides of March” has somehow survived from my schooldays, stored away in my subconscious along with catchy 80s summer hits and irritating jingles from adverts (“Bachelors
savory rice..now it’s twice as nice” ....why has my selective memory malfunctioned in this way?). “Beware the ides of March”....I looked it up with google and sure enough it’s from Shakespeare; Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II. What exactly is an ide? Well according to varying sources it’s the 15th of March, it’s the 15th of any month and it’s the beginning of Spring in the Roman calender. I’ll go for the last one. So there you are, Spring is near and will soon be painting new colours on the landscape, bringing fresh scents to the hedgerows, longer days..etc..etc... “Viva los ides of March”. Good name for a title. Good name for a band even.

Incidently, Shakespeare and Cervantes both died on the same day and 2005 marks the 400th anniversary of “El Quijote”. Everybody is supposed to read it. I’ll wait for the Polanski version.

Nearly forgot about the running..
Two lunchtimeH4Ls.
Monday. Railway route. 24 minutes. Windy.
Tuesday. Canal route. 28 minutes. Cold but sunny. Ran through a flock of sheep and goats. The sheepdogs scare the shit out of me but they’re only doing their jobs. Don’t kick big dogs on principle.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I have a sheepdog... well, a potential sheepdog. The fact that she's bone idle precludes her from earning her keep. But she will bite people who mess with her flock... she keeps a flock of chickens... true! You would like her - she doesn't get Shakey either. She can play "fetch" though ... especially if it involves a chicken.

I think I've strayed from the subject matter.

[Sweder]

. . . that make this forum the finest in the land.
Of course 'land' is a spurious entity in relation to web-based lifeforms, but you get my drift. Good work fellas.

On the subject of 'sheep' and 'dogs', I have a slightly different problem.
I have a Lurcher who thinks she's a sheepdog, wants to be a sheepdog and above all loves to round up sheep at extreme speed. Unfortunately her breed is considered a hunting dog, which validates any irate farmer filling her hide with lead at the first sign of contact with livestock.

Running? I remember that . . .

[Riazor Blue]

Hi BB,
Good to see you on the forum. It must be darned cold where you are at the moment. Regarding pre-dawn runs, I've done a few, this morning included. Luckily I had time to warm up again in bed for half an hour afterwards.
West Brom, Crystal Palace, West Ham, QPR....... ........ probably on this forum we are the running equivalents of the teams we support (if you get my drift).
I never got on with Shakey either.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Hi Razor Blur, ....you are my inspiration and the reason that I find myself here in cyberspace. I particularly relate to your Sunday lunch episodes.
By the way, I've still got a couple of unopened sachets of something called "power-gel" which you gave me when you came to run the Ponferrada Half Marathon (I chickened out of it at the end of lap one...remember?) Do I drink it or just smear it on my legs? I was too embarrassed to ask at the time.....

[Bierzo Baggie]

Enough talking...let’s get running.
Did my habitual Toral de Merayo-Monte Pajariel route. Nobody about in Toral except a couple of old fellows chopping wood and the usual village chickens. Please note Mid-Life Crisis Man, that these chicken don’t go around escorted by canine bodyguards. They’re tough-bastard chickens around here. I’d never kick a chicken.

No snow on Pajariel although there’s plenty of it higher up on virtually all the mountains that encircle the Bierzo region. It felt too warm for snow down here but I did notice a few snowflakes falling when I crossed the rickety bridge.
Running time, 44 minutes. Felt weak. Must be all this energy-consuming keyboard-tapping.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Friday’s run for me was a long run. I rarely run for longer than an hour and a half, and never more than two hours unless it’s a marathon or something like that. A longish run and a longish entry.

First 20 minutes along the road to Toral de Merayo. At the entrance to the village I passed an old fellow sharpening a humungous sythe. He looked like the grim reaper, especially when he grinned at me. I lengthened my stride. Heard the strange rhythmic clicking sound that storks make and glancing upwards I see 6 or 7 storks circling the village like vultures....the grim reaper, storks like vultures.... “beware the ides of March?”

Took the wooded valley that runs behind Monte Pajariel and which after half an hour of gentle climbing would eventually take me to the village of San Esteban. The last time I came along here the second half of the trail was an attractive path that wound its way upwards through the rocks and holm oaks of the steep-sided valley. Now the JCBs had done their dirty work and the path had widened into a muddy, characterless track. The encroaching city extends its tentacles a little further. I passed another old guy near some allotments and was going to ask him why such a nice path had been destroyed but thought twice on seeing that he wielded a fairly mean-looking sickle. Perhaps he was the grim reaper’s little brother. I’m joking of course, the real reason for not stopping was that I probably wouldn’t get started again. I try not to stop when I’m going uphill.

Just before San Esteban I saw a couple of old friends. First I saw the solitary heron through the silver birch trees by the river . It was taking flight and the elegant bend of its neck as it gained height distinguished it from the storks. I'd never seen it so far up river before. Then, a huge buzzard (eagle?) which hovered overhead. I always see one along here and it probably nests in the rocks nearby.

Still no sign of Spring (where are you ides of March?) Looking at my old notebooks It seems I did this route exactly a year ago.
7/3 San Esteban route. Sunny. Butterflies...yellows and blacks.
This year, no butterflies, no cherry or almond blossom, no budding branches. Only ice, which hangs like stalactites from the massive concrete water pipe I must pass under and the leafless riverside trees which enabled me to see the heron.

At San Esteban I stopped to drink, but the fountain was frozen. Managed to slurp at an icy trickle of water. Then started a steep 10 minute ascent up to sunnier slopes where the vineyards are, leaving the steep-sided valley to run along the eastern flank of Monte Pajariel. From here you can see the whole urban sprawl of Ponferrada with the chimneys of the power station on one side and the little village I’d just come through with its allotments and orchards on the other. Urban and rural. Chalk and cheese. Present and Past.

The final section is all descent. It’s not exactly what a local fell runner would call “technical” but care is needed to tread carefully with the stones and furrows that litter the way. I soon reach the rickety bridge and 5 minutes later arrive home, more tired than usual.

Route; Toral de Merayo-River Oza-San Esteban-Monte Pajariel-Otero.
TRT 1hour 36minutes (exactly the same as last year).

[Sweder]

The run sounds heavenly. I would love to do that some day.
Nice one BB.

[Riazor Blue]

BB, Smear it on yer legs, you'll run faster trying to get away from all the wasps.

How's this for a Sunday lunch tale? We were booked to go to los suegros today for lunch, but at the last moment they had to head off South to Vilagarcia in Pontevedra. They phoned last night to inform us and said "no problem, we will drop lunch off at your place on the way".

I headed off to a race this morning, but when I returned, there was a huge pot of fabada waiting - about a gallon of the stuff - and not your wishy-washy watery variety, this was the ' mash up three kilos of beans to thicken the gravy type'. Then there were the six roased chicken drumsticks plus two potted flans for postre.

I've a good mind to phone the in-laws to complain. After all... where was the wine, liquores and coffee?

Mother's day in the UK today, I hope you have been treating Rosana well.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Nice one Bri...and oops, forgot to ring me mum!

[Bierzo Baggie]

Sunday morning’s run wasn’t exactly heavenly. Met up with 4 other runners; Miguel the prof, Carlos the copper, Juan Carlos from Palencia (Juan Ca to his friends and to an English speaker’s ear this doesn’t sound entirely complimentary, think about it…) and Luis who like me is an occasional footballer. These guys are lean and they mean business. Don’t normally run with them because 1) my work timetable doesn’t permit the week-day 8pm meet-up time and 2) I can’t keep up with them.

Yesterday was supposedly “one and a half hours at a jovial rhythm”. I must have lost something in the translation. Managed to keep up with them only on the hilly bits but on the long, flat stretches they slowly but surely became clouds of dust on the horizon. Running in this way demands such concentration (just to keep going) that I wouldn’t have noticed a heron had it been perched on my shoulder. I suppose that nearly all running involves a dose of suffering but like pre-dawn runs I’ll avoid it if I can. On Sunday I suffered. We regrouped at a couple of points but I must admit that when they were finally out of sight I walked the last 10 minutes home.

Route: Otero-Monte Pajariel-followed by random hallucinogenic landscapes culminating in the crossing of the pink, wobbly bridge and a short walk home.
TRT: 1hour 30 minutes.

Post-script. One of the lads has congratulated me on completing what he called a “quality session”. Ta mate!

It certainly bumped up my mileage for this week.
Week 4. Runs 5 (over 50kms in all. Haven’t run this much since last June. Could this actually be “the forum effect”).

[Bierzo Baggie]

Thursday. First run of the week. H4L along the canal where I enjoyed the first signs of Spring. Tentative baby leaves sprout from waterside willows and at one point I observed the arcing flight of a swallow or a swift. It also felt pleasantly warm. Promising.
TRT: 28 minutes.

[Riazor Blue]

The 'Forum Effect' is to drink lots of Guinness and eat huge amouts of choccie and cakes. Nothing to do with running.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Impossible to find a good pint of Guinness around here Brian. There's a chocolate factory in Astorga though.....

Friday and the habitual Toral-Monte Pajariel route.
Continued in my search for Spring. Up above the river on the northern flank of Pajariel you’ll still be hard pressed to find signs. The sun starts to warm up significantly from about lunchtime but in the shade the air is cold and there is still frost lingering in the deeper recesses. But then I saw it, at the brow of a hill, along the section of trail where the sun probably stays for longest. It was on an almond tree or perhaps it was a cherry tree (I can never tell the difference, unless there’s fruit about of course) a leafless tree in an orchard of bare, leafless trees. Attatched to a twiggy finger which stretched out towards the sun there were perhaps half a dozen white flowers. The first blossom of Spring. For me, this is one of the sweetest moments of the running year and it always adds a spring to my stride (no pun originally intendeed). Boosted by a fuel-injection of optimism I flew through Toral de Merayo and back home along the country road.
TRT 44 minutes.

Followed by 38 chilly minutes round the river early on Saturday morning. Nice and sunny though.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Well, after a long winter, cold enough to freeze the brass off a monkey nut (pardon me for the Keeganism) Summer seems to have leapfrogged Spring and the big heat is on its way. Went for a run around the canal today and it was too hot for the Ron Hill trackie bottoms I was wearing. It was too hot for March 16th. The combined influence of a continental climate and global warming means that dramatic temperature swings are more noticable in certain regions. Less than 2 weeks ago I was breaking ice from the fountain of San Esteban and now I’m running along a canal accompanied by butterflies and I feel like jumping in just to cool off. These extremes certainly don’t feel normal. Ask the old fellows in their allotments. And what about the storks who can’t be bothered to migrate any more? It worries me, and even more so when I run because that’s when I’m most conscious of what’s happening around us.
TRT 30 minutes.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Discovered that the running commentary website had disappeared but kept the diary going anyway. I’d sort of got into it. A running diary based on my preparation for nothing in particular had turned into an observation of a landscape and its changes as seen whilst running. After 10 years trotting along the same paths you develop some kind of heightened consciousness of what’s around you and over the years I’ve definitely become more sensitive to the changing seasons and to the sounds and smells that accompany them. The landscape has become part of me and any change in it, temporary or permanent, makes me feel as if it is also me, myself that is changing. I suppose this explains why I’ve never lost the habit of “going out for a run”. In a nutshell it makes me feel alive. And I’m not a hippy. And I haven’t got any Donovan records hidden away, so…..nice to be able to read about everybody’s running on-line again and to have the opportunity to record my own running experiences.

And to maintain a complete diary, this is what happened in the mean time.

[Bierzo Baggie]

At least the swallows are still migrating. There’s a common parking area for the neighbours in the basements of the block where I live and built against some plastic piping high above the garage door there are three intricately crafted swallows nests. They seem to be built with thousands of tiny particles of hardened mud. No tape measures , no precision tools and definitely no computer simulated plans. Yet they are tiny works of architectural genius, produced by something instinctive and inexplicable and somehow passed on genetically from swallow generation to swallow generation. First thing this morning a swallow shot out as I opened the door...they know their ides of March these swallows...and they didn’t even use google.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Went for a run along the Pajariel trail, putting on shorts for the first time this year. Above Toral de Merayo all the almond trees are now in bloom, a riot of pinks and whites that is truly spectacular.

TRT 44 minutes plus 5 minutes off-trail chasing a couple of largish birds through a vineyard. They were brightly coloured, with big beaks and they were squarking like crows. I decided that they were jays, probably in the process of mating. Made my apologies and left.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Friday and an evening run in the park. One of the few appealing things about running in the local park at night is that sometimes I actually meet somebody to run with. Bumped into Cesar and we did a few laps together. The last time I bumped into Cesar was on the football pitch and it almost ended in a punch-up! He’s thinking of doing the marathon of Toral de los Vados at the end of June but isn’t sure about being able to get enough training in. I’m in a similar situation. Can’t see myself running much more than 30 or 40kms a week and when the baby comes I probably won’t be running at all. My intention is to be there at the start and at least run to the 25km drinks station which is conveniently next to our flat. I had aimed to do the same last year but I ended up finishing it so who knows?
TRT 40 minutes.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Remember Fish? Remember Marillion? Remember Kayleigh?

“Do you remember the cherry blossom in the market square?
Do you remember I thought it was confetti in our hair.”

Well it turns out that cherry blossom it ain’t (that comes out later). They are all almond trees in bloom, pinks and whites which emblazon the hillside above Toral de Merayo with fantastic colour. Repeating Thursday’s route (but in the opposite direction) I find the track confetti strewn in places and the sweet smelling yellow flowers of the mimosa trees are out as well. The fleeting beauty of Spring in Bierzo….

“Do you remember dancing in stilettos in the snow,

Errr… I try not to.
Fish was a big, fat lad with a mullet wasn’t he?

Week 5
Runs 3 and about 25kms
Week 6
Runs 4 and around 30kms