This was my experience of the Aquilianos on the first Saturday of June, a unique event held in a unique little region.
It’s always been billed as a non-competitive event. Non-competitive my arse! In fact it’s getting more competitive every year and now they get us to stick a chip in our trainers, just like in the road races.
6am. 500 hardy souls in front of a Baroque town hall going through the familiar rituals. Here we are again, but familiarity does not yet breed contempt. We set off. The first few kms are in darkness along the comfy forest trails of Monte Pajariel and most people are chatting and joking.
Pajariel descent, the Roman bridge near San Esteban, a banana at Villanueva, up and down to Valdefrancos, through the woods along the Oza valley, the old Roman way to Montes de Valdueza, onward to Peñalba, the names roll off the tongue like Visigoth kings. Run-walk-stop-start-quick-quick-slow...
8:25am. Reached Montes in good time and by Peñalba we’d already clocked well over 1000m ascent. It wasn’t as hot as expected but the humidity was draining. The Silla de Yegua is as always the defining section. For years it has invoked fear in my subconcious. Now it’s just another obstacle. To imagine this ascent you’d have to think of scaling Ben Nevis in the middle of a more than undulating 66k. Here each one fights their own private battle.
At this point I teamed up with one of the regulars. Everybody calls him “pasteles”(cakes) as he works for the town’s finest cake shop. Cake-boy is a giant of a man with a big T on his t-shirt. Usually he’s near the front of the field but today he was struggling.
“This is inhuman” he muttered, slipping on the shale as we trudged upwards.
The gradient is at its cruelest at the beginning and then becomes only slightly less cruel. Once through a section of twisted holm oaks a rocky promontory becomes visible hanging from the sky ahead. This is roughly the halfway point of the climb and forms an essential part of the mind game I employ to get to the top. Here I always stop for a 5-minute breather.
Someone called me but I couldn’t see who until we got closer. It was my old friend Paco the Andalusian perched on a rock taking photos with a swish new camera. So I took his. Stopped for a chat. I was still feeling surprisingly good at this stage. Asked Paco about his job. He’s been working for the local mining mafioso in a cement factory for the last few years. Not any more. Another redundancy statistic for the economic crisis. But Paco doesn’t seem too worried about it today. Today he’s taking photos of the Aquilianos on a rocky promotory.
11:15. Reached the antenna at the summit. In distance this is probably about half way round the whole route. The feeding station is well stocked with melons, energy bars and aquarious. Food intake is usually important but my stomach isn’t designed to assimulate some of the ingredients from the plastic sachets that they were dispensing at the foot of the big climb. Maybe the 2 gels had helped me to shoot up La Silla in record time but my stomach was soon a crazy acidic tumbledrier sending waves of discomfort through my body every few minutes. Is this siclky flavoured gunge just another performance enchancing drug? I really wouldn’t know the difference.
Descent off La Silla (2143m). Cautiously jogged down and walked up the second peak.
Alto de las Berdiainas (2116m) and then…
The old one-eye (2051m)
And finally the long pull up to La Guiana (1849m)
1pm. Had an ecological crap behind the hermitage on La Guiana. I lack the literary devices to express this in any other way but it was a great weight off my mind and body. Covered up the nasty business with a large slab of slate and hoped that nobody would be up here fossil hunting in the afternoon.
Feeling much better again I caught up with cake boy on the descent down the firebreak Now we were in the final third, the fastest section of the Aquilianos, all fast trails and speedy descents. Those who have kept something in reserve will produce spectacular times. But I’m not up for it and cake-bay isn’t either.
1:30pm. Ferradillo and the second rucksack drop-off point. Water-melons and oranges. Changed trainers as my feet were on fire. The Mizuno Wave Harriers may be great for grass and rainy days in the Lake District but the Aquilianos trails are baked hard this year.
Sat under the same tree where I’d rested with dad 12 months ago. Took the replacement trainers from the old rucksack he’d used that day and saw some of the same people passing through at exactly the same time. This is just after the point where the long route meets the short route. Felt very emotional. Cake boy called me but I decide to stay here 5 minutes more.
3pm. Rimor and a plateful of cherries. Linked up with cake boy again. Ponferrada should be three quarters of an hour away. We took 1 hour 45.
4:43pm. Finish line. Pasties and chorizo. Free massages and cheering from the terraces around the town square. Ever the local hero Cake boy grabbed a microphone and publicly thanked me for dragging him along fom La Silla and this wasn’t exactly true but it was nice to receive raptuous applause for once.
Noticed a non-competitive race classification pinned to the massage marque.
1st place man had arrived at 12:30
2nd was Gus the lottery seller.
3rd was Ignacio string bean and 10th was his brother.
In 6th place was a guy who had climbed Everest and 9th had just got back from Annapurna!.
Some photos here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bierzobaggie/Aquilianos2010#
The photos feature Che Guevara, cake-boy eating cake, the mighty Susana (first lady) near Peñalba and Paco el Andaluz on the rocks.
And a final photo I tried to recreate a certain scene on the last hill alongside the Templar’s castle... one year on. Unfortunately a stray thumb blocked out the sky.
Past-present-future...
