Travesía Integral de los Montes Aquiianos

[Riazor Blue]

Oops Si, I honestly thought that this was 3rd of July, not June. so given that you've already finished (at least by this time i hope you have) I hope you ran well and more to the point, enjoyed it.
Fabulous thread by the way. Love to you all from us lot, hope to see you when I'm in toral de los Vados... lunch, dinner.. a soak in the river ....

can't wait for the write up of this race..

[Sweder]

Equally embarrassed (I didn't get the date wrong, just assumed you wouldn't be running sections do close to the main event) not to have proferred best wishes before the event. I hope all was well BB, and trust you are event now basking in the glow with a cold cerveca or twelve.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Thanks guys. Well, by the time I finished lunch was cold and I'd knackered my left ankle big time. Looks like it'll be knittingcommentary.co for me from now on .

[johnb]

Sorry to hear about your ankle - it was it sustained whilst running, not when you got home?

[johnb]

I forgot to say congratulations and apologise also for not wishing you good luck.

Cheers

John

[Bierzo Baggie]

Sorry to hear about your ankle - it was it sustained whilst running, not when you got home?

Neither. I was walking at the time and I fell down a hole. Managed to hobble home though....

[Antonio247]

Congratulations, BB! It must be great to do the whole course you had already done in stages.

Regards

Antonio

[Bierzo Baggie]

I’m now immersed in the world cup like everybody else but I still remember when I used to do a bit of running. Won’t be doing any more for at least a couple of months though.

I was walking at the time and I fell down a hole. Managed to hobble home though....

Oops, I’ve just re-read the above and it sounds like I fell down a well shaft or something. I didn’t. It actually happened on fairly flat terrain where I stepped into some sort on hole and twisted my ankle. I’d like to say that I injured myself spectacularly on a section of vertiginous descent. Nothing so glamorous. I wasn’t even running at the time. I was walking along, chatting to some fellow and feeling quite pleased with myself to tell the truth when… a misplaced foot, a sharp twist, a crunching of ligaments (don’t know if ligaments crunch…these ones did!) and a shot of pain through my central nervous system which seemed to scream “take that you tw…!” Ouch.

I’d just passed the abandoned village of Ferradillo. I’d always known the place was cursed. Or had the hole been left strategically by the cows that were watching me with bemusement from the shade of a huge walnut tree? Revenge perhaps for taking the mick out of their herdsmen.

So, I suspect it was punishment for something or other. I’d dared think that I could be a fell runner; that I could overtake people running downhill; that I’d miraculously fortified my ankles over the last few years so that they were now unbreakable; that I could get through this free of suffering…and be back for lunch! Poor deluded fool.
“Lunch” was actually an excuse. After reading Andy and Sweder’s marathon posts I’d decided that what I needed was to inject a bit of tension into my running and a spot of intensity into my writing about it. I picked up rather more intensity than I’d bargained for and three hours of mostly downhill hobbling followed in excruciating pain. My just returns for daring to laugh at the running gods?

Now, nearly two weeks later, I still can’t understand how I could have been stupid enough to carry on, but at the time I don’t think it actually sank in. Having flown down the rocky slopes of Truchillas, having ridden the biting tackles of Oscar the undertaker, having survived the descent from the mare’s saddle, it seemed like some sort of poetic justice that I could injure myself in such an innocuous manner. Finished, but it was all too painful to gleam any real satisfaction from.

[Bierzo Baggie]

I’ve already described the route pretty explicitly on this thread. And I’ve stuck a few photos up on the local ski-bum’s forum http://elmorredero.superforos.com/viewtopic.php?t=600
Here are a few more…

1. Sorry to bore you, but here’s an ugly shot of my deformed ankle. It gradually acquired pastel shades of black and purple during the week.

2. Me leaning on a local police car, blissfully unaware that I had a large blob of snot on my chin.

3. Climbing the mare’s saddle… a beast of a hill.

4. As above with bells on.

5. There’s still a bit of snow near the top. Other participants provide reference points.

6. The final pic shows the finishing post which I crossed in just over 10 and a half hours. That’s faster than I’ve ever done before but I’d rather have taken twice that time and not injured myself.

And if anybody ever fancies doing this one in its short (48km) or long (66km) form then let me know. I’ll no doubt be entering it again next year… but walking.

Now back to the football…..

[El Gordo]

Just re-read this again after Sweder's mention of it. I don't think I fully appreciated it before as I read it in fragments -- and normally through the bottom of a beer glass as it was mostly written through that extended post-Zurich / redundancy /pre-World Cup period when I was in an advanced state of... relaxation.

It's a fantastic patchwork, adding up to a really memorable race report. Except that, it isn't really a race report at all, of course. It's an extended preview. It's all in the anticipation. I don't know if I could do the race (not running, anyway) but I'd love to see that countryside sometime. Amazing combination of snowy mountain tops and roasted valleys.

That looked like a nasty injury. Good to see you're back running. How's the ankle holding up?

Anyway, thanks for all those reports. Superb stuff.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Thanks for that Andy.
Maybe you could use next year's event as a Two Ocean's recovery run?

Never got around to writing up a proper race report. I was pretty sore afterwards and angry with myself for getting injured in such a daft way. Managed to run a local 10k last Sunday but the ankle's still dodgy and clicks a bit.

I'll be following all your Two Oceans updates. Sounds like a great project. I reckon that running those sort of distances on the road is actually a lot tougher than off-road equivalents where most of us inevitably end up walking (and resting) more. Good luck with it!!

Just to round off the Aquilianos thread here's a link to the organizer's web page where they've got split times (tiempos parciales) for all the participants of both routes http://www.rutasdelbierzo.com/AQUILIANOS...ntario.htm Might be of interest for anybody thinking of tackling an event that nobody north of the Pyrenees will have heard of...