February frolics

[Bierzo Baggie]

I could be saying this in a few years time...but I’d be lying. It should read “slagheaps” for “fields”. When I first came to Ponferrada it was a fairly ugly little mining town. The buildings were all stained with coaldust from the huge, menacing slagheaps which had accumulated over the years to literally form “mountains of coal”. The first winter I spent here I felt as if I was somewhere in Eastern Europe. This wasn’t your picture postcard white village in Andalucia sort of Spain. Funny enough my great grandad used to renovate slagheaps in the Black Country . He’d have had a great time here.

My run on Friday took me all along the river through the centre of Ponferrada and past the rusting hulk of the old power station and then, a short but horrendously steep section where the river narrows into a rocky gorge. Here, the trail bikers come to practise their boulder jumping. Eventually reached the main road, high up above the river where I could cross via a viaduct. A waist high barrier separates the runner from a rather spectacular bungee jump, but without the bungee, and this merited a sit-down once I’d reached the other side. From my vantage point there’s a spectacular view of Monte Pajariel and the snow-capped mountains beyond. You can also see all of Ponferrada in miniature. The other day I had counted storks. Now I counted cranes (of the metallic variety). Stopped counting at 30. There’s also a vast expanse of blackened land on the outskirts which is where the coal mountains have been levelled...it took 3 years to shift it all. Now they’re building a 30-floor skyscraper which will be the highest in Castilla y Leon. “The times they are-a-changing”. Rural, urban, industrial, post-industrial, all within half an hour’s running time. Up here I felt like a witness to the birth of a baby city.

Next, followed a stony track that took me sharply back down to the river and the way I’d come. Crossed with Oscar the undertaker, an old football team-mate who was walking his dogs, which reminds me....at the start of my run yesterday I booted a dog. What’s worse...it felt good (em, it was him or me! grrr)

Running time 52 minutes.
Sitting down time 5 minutes.
Storks 0 Cranes 30.