On Sunday 8th March 2009, I left for San José where the I trail Cabo de Gata Níjar had its finish. I arrived there at 8: 20 am and took the coach that the organisation had provided for us and took us to Rodalquílar. It was a beautiful day, sunny with no wind. Later, it was a bit hot, around 25º Celsius. On the way to the place where the race numbers were given I heard two men speaking English, so I asked them if they were from the UK. Actually, they are from Southampton and London but they live in Nerja. Their names are Richard and John. I also met a few other runners from Almería such as David, Javier who had lunch with us at Club de Mar this year, Jose, Juan Pedro who was going to do the race on mountain bike, etc. I did some warming up with Javier. T
he course was a bit steep at the beginning, going near some old gold mines. Then, the course was softer. Nearly all the course was along dirt tracks, paths or dry streams. I met Antonio, who happened to have overtaken me very fast at the stadium at Almería half marathon. I managed to jog along the first 10 km but from there Antonio and I went on jogging and walking fast a bit. We reached another runner called Adrián, from the province of Granada and went together as far as the finish although in the last kilometre I had to slow down a bit since my legs felt exhausted. I arrived the last one in 3 hours 32 minutes after doing around 27 kms. There were a lot of drink stations with water, Aquarius, oranges, bananas, cakes, etc. As we were the last ones we were accompanied by two young women on mountain bicycles who helped us and cheered a lot. When I arrived I was given a bag with a technical T-shirt, an ecological recipient to throw litter, a magazine, tourist leaflets about Cabo de Gata Níjar natural park, a bottle of water, a banana, an orange, etc. At the finish, I was met by Javier who was with a couple.
Although it was a tough race, especially because I haven´t trained much after Almería half, I really enjoyed it since it is great to be far from the asphalt and the madding crowd. Besides, the scenery is great with beautiful cactuses, poppies, wells, windmills, the sea in the background. It is a pity my memory stick moved a little and made me believe it had fallen down after doing a photo. So, I just took some photos at the beginning and at the finish.
More information and photos at
http://WWW.trailcabodegata.aqueatacamos....bindex.htm
