Madrid minus 11 weeks.

[Riazor Blue]

Finding routes for long runs can be a little difficult around La Coruña. Firstly, there are no maps. I have been trying to find a map of the area, covering the ‘county’ but they do not exist. I have been told that for ordinace survey type maps, one needs to apply to the army. Secondly, the network of public footpaths that exists in the UK is unheard of in Galicia. There is lots of countryside here, it’s very rural, but all the land is private. Finally, if one runs on the busier roads, there’s a good chance of being run over.

I think I mentioned before that a cyclist friend recommended an area for running. It’s up in the hills just before one enters the city. The area is known a Zapateira and basically, there is the university, the golf club, some posh houses and forests up there. In the last couple of years they have been building a few housing estates up there aswell. Again fairly posh houses.

I have taken the car out a few times to scout around up there, to get an idea of routes etc. On Saturday I decided that I’d give it a go. One has to prepare more for a run like this. On the esplanade there are bars and shops, so if one needs to buy another drink, one can. If something hurts, one can pull up and catch a bus or taxi home. Up there in the hills it’s different. There are a few houses, no buses, no shops, no telephones.

The morning was fairly cold, in the city it was 6 degrees, in Zapateira 3. I wore my running jacket, partly for the cold, but also because I needed to carry money, a couple of isostar food pouches, the car keys, my identity card and health insurance card. Normally I wouldn’t bother with the cards, but being isolated, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I parked the car in one of the new estates, Valaire. I measured on the way up, that from the main road it was 2.8Km, all uphill. Leaving the water in the car for now, Iran down to the main road, then back up to the car, there are pavements for about half the journey. The hill is steep, probably about 10% a little steeper in places, a little less in others. Pace wise, I set off slowly downhill, and returned even slower, my idea was to keep aerobic as much as possible. These first 5.6km were completed in around 37 minutes. I suppose that the vertical climb was about 400 metres. I picked up water bottle from the car and then made a slight off road diversion to where many muntain bikers were practicing. I only covered about 1Km here as I decided that the terrain wasn’t suitable for my Adidas Supernovas. One day I’ll have to pop up there in the trail shoes for a run as it’s perfect cross country stuff, a hilly, muddy circuit of about 2.5Km.

Back on the road again, I continued uphill, the estate is actually very nice, the houses are semi-detatched, probably 4 or 5 bedroom, balconies, verandahs, garage and a small garden. There are also luxury flats aswell. The estate has only been finished about a year and I’d say that only 20% is occupied at the moment. All told there are about 500 homes here (the semis cost around 160,000 pounds). Continuing upwards I took a left fork in the road at an estate which is in construction, it will be called O Caron, and started to descend. The existing houses here are huge, with big gardens. Between houses is open land. Each house has at least one enormous dog and I imagine that they do not see many runners up there. As I passed each house, the dogs would start barking from just behing the fence.

I followed this road for about 2km, which leads to the golf club. They say that membership is 4,000 pounds per year, but that also gives membership to the pony club in the city. I turned around here and backtracked, up the hill passing the dogs again. At O Caron, I turned left, continuing uphill, this leads to another new estate called MonteGolf. This is the highest point on the hill. They say that it’s about 550metres up. A friend lives in this estate. Lovely house, very quiet, huge skies at night. There’s a communal swimming pool and tennis courts here and there will be a café/bar in the future.

Going back down hill a little there is a road that leads off down the other side of the hill. I took this road, it was very steep. There were a few houses and dogs, the road bears to the right and an unmade road on the left leads off to another new estate called ValleSur, which is almost finished. I was now jogging along quite happily with my isostar pouch, trying not to go too fast downhill, trying to keep on the balls of my feet and not too much on the heels. The area here is a mixture of eucalyptus forest, panted in the 1930s for timber and open gorse. On the way down there are some huge houses, naturally all with corresponingly huge dogs. The council here (Arteixo) have started to build some roads leading off the one I was on, I think the idea was to open this area up for housing, but perhaps it was a bit too remote, as there hasn’t been built anything on any of them.

Finally this road leads into a little village, which is called Uxía. There are about 50 houses here to the left of the road, some are old stone cottages, others are newer. This is a typical rural ‘aldea’ as they are called in Galicia. They say that Galicia is one continious ‘aldea’. Some are like Uxía, small neucleas of houses, with alleyways instead of roads inside. Around the houses are fields, in this case the crop is ‘grelos’ (turnip leaves). Other ‘aldeas’ are linear, in that they follow a main road. The old road from Coruña to Santiago is like this, the houses follow the road, and behing are the fields, one doesn’t know where one aldea ends and the next begins.

I took a right turn past Uxía and the road started to climb again, I was now sort of running along the valley floor, but it was still fairly steep. The road continued to meander and climb for abou 1 ½ Km then I was babk downhill again. Looking at my watch I had just reached the 2 hour mark. I was a couple of kilometers from the village of Feans where there is a large cemetry. Bearing in mind that I still had one hell of a climb to return to Valaire, I decided to backtrack.

The provincial government is doing road improvements here, I think that in the past, this was a logging route and not much more, anyhow it’s just wide enough for 2 cars to pass. Galicia is granite. So when they want to build, be it a road, a block of flats, houses, whatever, it needs a lot of dynamite. Anyhow, en route, I passed a house where they are building a dry stone wall. Where the road is being widened, I saw where the house owner is getting his stone from. One day I am going to build myself a stone house. Especially in Pontevedra, but all over Galicia, there is discarded granite. All I would need is an open truck for a couple of weeks and I’d have my raw materials for free.

Back in Uxía I began the climb up to Montegolf, this was hard work, it was about 3km and rises probably 500m. From Montegolf it was all downhill to the car and blessed releif. All in all I ran 23.5km in 2 hours 42 minutes.

I have to say, although this route was far from easy, and carrying a 1.5 liter bottle of water in my arms was no fun, I really enjoyed this run. I’ll definitely be doing it again. What with the forests and open land, it will be fantastic in Spring, not too many cars either.

Sunday.

Yesterday was back to the boring old stuff. 8km recovery run on the esplanade in 44 minutes. Nuff said.


All in all, this was a fairly heavy week, 80 KM. I’m taking Monday off, and my series will be shorter this week. I had not really planned to be hitting 80Km for another 2 or 3 weeks, so back to 60 or so in the week to come.