June.To run or not to run?

[Bierzo Baggie]

Off road running is tough but fun.
Road running is just tough.
Set out to run for a couple of hours along some totally flat country roads. Followed the Bierzo canal which is not the irrigation ditch of my half hour jaunts but a bigger “channel” that irrigates innumerable rows of tidily placed fruit trees. The “reineta” varieties of apples and pears is king in these parts (the low-lying agricultural “basin” of central Bierzo) and the harvest in September is a spectacle only rivalled by the “vendimia” grape harvest in the surrounding foothills. Today I’m more interested in kilometres than apples and pears. I’ve put in more pram miles than running miles in the last month or so and I wanted to see how I coped with a couple of hours non-stop road running. Predictably, not too well.

The country roads I use are long, straight and seemingly never-ending. Any bend is a distant point on the horizon which you only get to by playing mind games. Gone are the happy distractions of trail-running, a new landscape from a new perspective every 5 minutes, a bird here, a flowering plant there. This is the empty road with its anonymous grey tarmac, the regular, rhythmic pounding of feet, the bread and butter of preparing for a road marathon. I’d actually forgotten how much I hated it.

After about an hour I met the only other runner about this Sunday morning. It was mighty Miguel Basurko, the butcher of Villafranca, a hardy sub-species of the runner-hispanica commonly known as the Bierzo ultra-runner. First met Miguel about 10 years ago when I used to join him for a few lunchtime laps of the park. As he got faster I occasionally resorted to using my mountain bike to accompany him along the paths and trails near his village. Eventually I couldn’t even keep up with him on the bike. Anyway, Miguel will be there at Toral de los Vados as he has been for the last 15 years or so. Ran with him for 10 minutes which was a big mistake as it left me extremely knackered and the last 45 minutes were an authentic torture. Did a section of the marathon route between Dehesas and La Martina by which time it felt as if I’d slowed to a sub-walking pace.

On the positive side I got around without walking and probably averaged 5 minute kms overall. No aches and pains either.
On the negative side the mere thought of running another 18+ kms in a marathon with the thermometers only going upwards fills me with horror. Best not to think about it.
Sod “tapering”… I’ll try again next Sunday.
Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes.