October:Turning over a new leaf.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Had a mild cold last week. Not enough to stop me going out running but certainly enough to give me an excuse not to. Warped sports psychology for beginners.
Back to it on Saturday morning though. Donned trackie bottoms for the first time since spring. Parched land and autumn colours.
Route round the canal. Total running time 30 mins.

By now I include anything vaguely active as “training”. This includes walking. For me walking is…just another form of running.

Sunday morning. First decent attempt at a walk in the mountains for months. Myself, Oscar from Uruguay and Manolo set off early along the lonely “Morredero” road (Morredero…literally “a place to die”). Manolo is an occasional walking and mountain biking partner. Oscar bikes it to work every day and does 10 hour shifts making shuttering for concrete pillars somewhere above Toral de Merayo. We make a pretty lethal threesome of mountaineers. Ha ha!

Left the car at the highest point possible and followed a crest of mountain peaks, eventually taking in 3 of the 4 main summits of the Montes Aquilianos range.
These were “La Silla de la Yegua” (The mare’s saddle?) 2143m. “Pico Berdiaíanas” 2116m and Pico Tuerto (“the one eye”) 2051m. Our attempt to round it off with the fourth and final peak of La Guiana fell short when we all realized at the same time that we were just too knackered to go any further. This meant a prolonged sandwich stop on a rocky outcrop whilst enjoying a superb bird’s eye view of El Bierzo.
The worst part was turning round and having to climb all the peaks again.
Total walking distance: 15km. Total climbing distance: approx 1000m.

Didn’t see anybody else walking. Not a soul! The observed fauna consisted of a few partridges (released for hunting) a couple of small eagles hovering and a huge boar’s head hanging proudly from the wall of the bar where we stopped for a couple of shandies on the way down. It seemed to be grinning at us.

This was strictly a walk although we did find that running downhill was kinder for the knees at times. This enabled me to practice my fell running descent technique with shoulders and elbows slightly raised and occasional random jerky movements. I probably resembled Morrissey on a bad night.