Cross alpino La Peña del Tren
This last minute addition to the race calendar took us to La Maragateria, the land of a mysterious race of people who were once responsible for the mule trains which criss-crossed the Iberian peninsula in bygone days. If you like, they were the original long distance truckies. Many a legend surrounds the Maragatos, one of which is that they descend from a lost Berber tribe from the Atlas mountains of Morocco.
But the only vestige of the Maragato’s cultural legacy when we arrived in the nondescript village of Torneros de Valderia was a merry band of 3 pipers and 2 drummers who had taken shelter from the rain in someone’s doorway. The band of Maragatos in their regional costume had turned out to add a bit of colour to the proceedings, poor buggers…it was pouring down with rain and blowing a gale.
We parked the car and walked across the village square to sign up for the “1st Cross Alpino de La Peña del Tren”. A couple of fellows were struggling with a big inflatable finish arch and the organizers were installing a table in the basement of one of the houses, a makeshift haven from the elements. In the murky half light of the basement a plump woman was stripping garlic cloves over a bubbling cauldron. She looked like the race organizer’s mum.
While we were waiting for our numbers we watched the inflatable arch break its moorings and literally fly across the square. It was reeled back in again by the men and deflated. Today was not one for much paraphernalia.
The rain teemed down, the wind came and went in hearty gusts and the assembling runners took cover in the basement, occasionally peeking out to look up at the “peña,” a serrated line of crags above which resembled the spine of some cartoon stegosaurus.
Not too many familiar faces this time amongst the 120 or so starters. It’s just a little too far away and December is not a good month to cross the lonely Morredero pass (we didn’t, we took the long way around via
Astorga).
The Race
Didn’t register much during the race which was a shame. Each climb seemed to head up to the same cluster of crags which formed ghostly silhouettes in the mist and I spent most of my time looking down at the floor and wiping drizzle from my glasses. The stones which littered the way were slippery and on days like these I’m an accident waiting to happen. Caution was the order of the day.
The biggest climb came at the start through uncomfortable stony terrain and along an ever increasing gradient. Combined walking with the occasional skip forward but didn’t push it to calf popping extremes as it was the first time I’d done this sort of distance since Busmayor in July.
Then we followed a flatter high-land section where the trail was mostly flooded. Here I noticed that some people were actually trying to dodge the puddles. Waste of time that.. I suspected that there was a lot more to come. In fact it was ankle deep much of the time and on some of the descents the water had cut furrows which had transformed into minor torrents. Plenty of people set out in Gortex trainers but it didn’t make a jot of difference, everybody ended up soaked to the skin.
Then onwards to the descents which included a couple of fairly vicious firebreaks. The first one was steep, stony and rutted by little streams of rainwater which you had to skip across. I tried to follow the safest line as opposed to the most direct one. The only person I overtook was a young Moroccan lad (or was he Maragato?) who had come expecting a cross country and had by now lost all interest.
The second firebreak was a continuous line of sludge which you just surfed down encouraged by the sight of the village far below.
Finished the 19 km circuit in just over 2 hours which put me in the bottom half of the field. There were a lot of very serious runners out there though, I’d felt OK and I didn’t fall over so that was fine.
Interesting to note that the guys who were first and second came from Valladolid which is probably the flattest province in Spain and third was the tri-athlete who broke the Aquilianos record this year.
Signed up for 2 more races. Next Sunday: II Subida de Monte Pajariel and on the 20th the Lugo 10k.
StillWaddler, I assure you that my life is very mundane. It's just the running that's a bit out of the ordinary 
