Races and stuff.

[El Gordo]

This really is a superb event. Must admit that I’m biased but my dad came along this year and provided a more objective point of view. And my suspicions were confirmed. This really is a superb event.

We were down for the shorter 48km route and had absolutely no intention of running. It’s billed as a non-competitive outing and as long as you’re inside the very accessible time limits when they stamp your route card at each control point, everyone is free to set their own pace.

This is also the one day in the year that I get up at the ridiculously early time of 5 o’clock…for fun. Just enough time for a quick breakfast and a dash up to the town hall where the Aquilianos begins at 6am.

400 or so people were mulling about in the darkness. There’s a great atmosphere and many familiar faces although some of “los históricos” were missing this year. Pedro the lumberjack and Carlos the copper were both injured and Ignacio string bean and Luciano the dentist haven’t shown up for a couple of years now. But at least some of the old faithful were out in force. Domingo the wiry old mountain goat and his sidekick “cake-boy” were there. So were the troop from La Bañeza which included the organizers of the Truchillas race. Also saw that the ghostly El Chepas had dusted down his 1970s running gear but I blinked and he was gone again. But this year there was a whiff of change in the air. There’s very little or no publicity but word has got around and a new, sleeker, high-tec generation is out there with their flash mountain gear and their glistening gym-toned torsos. There are lots of girls too. The man-woman ratio is closer than at any other event I’ve taken part in over here.
Oh, and there was “mad dog” Jorge, my travelling companion in Truchillas 2 weeks before…running the 66km mountain route with a broken toe. He’s definitely from the old school. Dad was amazed to see the bloke kitted out in vest and shorts as if at the start of a 10k. Later on, after the short and long routes had joined near the end we bumped into him eating a massive ham sandwich whilst his fellow competitors were stuffing sticky gels and energy bars down their necks.

The runners set off at race pace but the rest of as were bunched together for the first hour or so and there was much camaraderie. We left Ponferrada and hit the forest trails enveloped in the fresh aroma of the hills that surround us, of thyme and of a thousand different wild flowers. Dawn broke gradually and the dawn chorus provided the musical accompaniment. Here an i-pod would be sacrilege.

No epic tale of struggle against adversity followed. Just a rather pleasant stroll in the hills albeit quite a long one with a few slices of water melon thrown in. Dad struggled on the hills (even the shorter route involves about 1500m of climbing over the 48k) but made up good time as the route got longer and everybody tired. He ended up finishing fresher than me which just goes to show, when you get older and lose speed.. go ultra.

Couldn’t write a report without listing the contents of the food and drink stations which were of the most varied imaginable. There were water melons, freshly picked cherries, foul tasting energy bars, pasties, ham and cheese baguettes, pears, bananas, yogurts, custard cream cakes (dad ate most of those) fruit juice, aquarius…I was even handed a slice of quince jelly wedged between two slabs of home made bread. All this is well worth going slow for.
All sorts of people took part, from elite mountain runners trashing it out over the 2000m+ peaks of the long route to the pot-bellied restaurant owner/pub landlord from Mallorca who we met walking the short one. The Aquilianos is probably the best possible introduction to ultra or mountain running. You don’t even have to run!

These photos are worth a view. They were taken by a runner from Madrid and are much better than any I managed on the day.
http://www.vayahistoria.com/waquilianos/index.htm

Sorry BB, I managed to miss your Aquilianos race report, which I've just caught up with. It looks like a great day out, and amazing scenery. We were within a gnat's whisker of coming over this year, but in the end I just didn't have the holiday to spare. I'm maxed out. Perhaps next year? I'm not sure how much running I could do up those mountains though -- that's more Sweder's department. We'll see.

But thanks for the report. I love the names of these characters.