Vigo-Bay Half Marathon. Sunday April 15th.
This is one I probably shouldn’t have done, for lots of reasons. As we were staying with my in-laws near La Coruña last weekend and Vigo didn’t seem that far away on the map I ended up going.
The motorway from Coruña to Vigo is a fast, traffic-less one at 7 in the morning but, hey, it’s also full of toll booths. By the time I reached Vigo I suspected that the Almeria- half by plane would have worked out cheaper. Found myself at the start line a record breaking 2 hours early. Amazingly there were already people kitted out and warming up . Met up with Miguel the Prof for breakfast at a beachside café. A warm, sunny day beckoned and it felt like I was on my hols. Suddenly the beach became much more appealing than the half marathon course.
Miguel the Prof is one of many runners who got up at 5:30 to get here from El Bierzo. Noticed that a fair few of the Ponferrada crew don’t even do our local races. Strange that. But Vigo Bay is a big race, the biggest half marathon I’ve ever run (and I reckon I’ve done about 20). There are 2000+ entrants and I imagine it’s something similar to what you runningcommentary folk are used to in the UK. It follows an attractive, “undulating” course along the Atlantic coast to the popular resort of Bayona, the last decent sized town before Portugal. It’s also a smoothly organized, customer-friendly operation with several tonnes of bananas at the end.
Got changed and joined hundreds of other runners trotting very slowly up and down the seafront. Didn’t see the point of it myself. I’ve never been one for warming up. If I’m going to run 21K then I don’t want to waste any more energy than strictly necessary beforehand. If I collapse next to the 20K mark then I just know I’ll be cursing those 20 minutes spent trotting up and down the seafront. This isn’t misplaced bravado or anything. I’m just scared of knackering myself out.
So, I stretched a few muscles half-heartedly, wriggled my toes about a bit, observed the mass of humanity trotting up and down (some very stylish lads and lasses out there) and then found myself gawking at some ladies stretching. Isn’t this what they call leering? Snapped out of it and went for a trot with Miguel the prof, the man from Ozuela and a few others who I recognized from the Aquilianos or the Morredero run. At this point I bumped into Riazor Blue. Didn’t recognize him at first without the long socks. RB’s shop must be doing a roaring trade in long socks as there were dozens of people wearing them. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a race with as much stylish sportswear as this one. There was also some bloke dressed up as a clown called Mr Dixieland who was running about and blowing a trumpet which is always nice to see.
And so, to the race, which I can divide into 3 clearly defined stages.
1-10K. Worked my way up through the field. Brian RB floated past me at the 10K point just as I had started to go backwards. Accelerated to keep up with him for a few strides but could see that the boy is in horribly good shape and so I did the wise thing and eased off. And backwards.
10-20K. Worked my way back down the field, wilting disturbingly in the heat. Everybody else seemed to be going at a constant, well-calculated pace and they all went past me in waves. Developed a nasty spitting habit. I’ve never spat so much in a race, not even in a game of football (neither playing nor watching). Lost more liquid gobbing than sweating…and I sweated buckets! They won’t be inviting me back to Vigo …
20-21K. Despite feeling very tired I discovered that I could still run hard. Went apeshit and overtook about 30 runners. I must have looked like a right nutter. One last push and I crossed the finishing line but it turned out to be the 21K marker. Lengthened my stride again and found myself racing the last 100 metres with another fellow from Ponferrada. We both finished as the clock ticked towards 1:38.
Had to shoot back pretty early which was a shame as this was an event to make a day of and I wasn’t able to meet up with RB and the clan. A dip in the sea would have massaged tired limbs back to life and as I watched the Atlantic breakers crash into the rocks off Bayona I imagined Sweder and Co looking out to a similar sort of panorama in Cape Town.
Postscript. Hobbled about for much of last week and only managed to run a measly 2 kilometres on Friday morning. Never before have I taken so long to recover from a race. Not even a marathon. Felt like I had concrete blocks strapped to my calves. Ouch! Maybe I should have warmed up…
Nice work BB.
Vigo's a great place, especially if you love seafood (I don't think tey serve any other kind). I only got to Bayona once but it looked like a cool weekend party town for the Vigonians (!?).
Another race I'd really enjoy tackling sometime.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Well BB 1:38 is a decent effort round these parts, so nothing to be ashamed of. I imagine you still finished well up in the field, so take heart. After 20 half marathons you're bound to have one indifferent one somewhere.
I know what you mean about warming up - it scares me too.
1.38 sounds very respectable to me:-) BTW I'm with you on the warm up thing if the race is more than a 5k what's the point - mind you this may be one of the reasons I'll never be challenging the record holders;-)
Really, I'm not that bothered about times (I ran? a marathon in 8 hours once upon a time). It's more a question of feeling comfortable during the race and finishing in reasonably good shape. I'd rather fancied Sweder's "less is more" philosophy but I reckon that as you get older you need to put more miles in to get through the longer distances without it hurting too much....race day should be enjoyable!
Upcoming events; May 20th Truchillas-Vizcodillo mountain race, 16km.
June 24th; maraton of Toral de los Vados.
Calves OK now ta very much.
“Ran” the Truchillas-Vizcodillo mountain race last Sunday. This is my second favourite race so it warrants a decent write up.
The Route
The course is 100% off-road and much of it is unrunnable.
Km 0-3. Wide stony track. Steady gradient.
Km 3-5. Rocky path through abundant vegetation. Steep and very difficult to run.
Km 5-6. Bog followed by a lake and the end of any semblance of a path.
Km 7. Stiff climb up the course of a mountain stream which soon disappears under a sea of rocks.
Km 8. Moorland. Gorse. Runnable but you can’t see where to put your feet.
Last few hundred metres. Huge pile of rocks and boulders. Some of them wobble when you step on them.
All this takes us from 1200m to 2122m and the summit of Vizcodillo.
It’s an out and back race so Kms 8-16 go in the opposite direction.
Some comments and observations from this, my fifth participation.
The Weather
Daylight revealed low cloud and mist. It had rained heavily over the preceding days and the mountainside was damp and exuberant. The stones would be treacherously slippery. I half expected the race to be diverted to an alternative route on lower ground. However the organizers assured us that it was clear on top. The rains had cut out a gully from a previously tranquil little stream and a rickety wooden bridge had been washed away but they’d fixed ropes to help us cross. I suppose this sort of scenario is normal for fell races in the north of England but most Spanish mountain races I’ve done have been warm, dry affairs so this one was going to be different.
The Attire
Off-road running shoes with very little cushioning.
Ron Hill trackie bottoms to avoid getting scratched by the gorse bushes.
Montes Aquilianos T-shirt.
Cap from Vigo which read “eat fish.. it’s good for you!” or something similar.
Ascent
This was the first time I’ve “run” on this sort of terrain since tearing ligaments in my ankle last June. Was pleasantly surprised to find my climbing capacity still very much intact. When I reached the top of Vizcodillo and looked back there was the spectacular sight of a string of competitors snaking its way upwards through the moorland and I calculated that I must have been in the top half of the field.
Jesus Christ
Just before the summit I became aware of some bloke dressed up as Jesus clambering up the rocks just behind me. I couldn’t work out if he was being blasphemous, being pious or paying homage to Monty Python. Or maybe it was the altitude..
Descent
The descent was a different story and I was overtaken by all the “proper” mountain runners. At one point I slipped on a section of wet turf and banged my shin against a rock. I reckon the Ron Hills might have even saved me from a stitch or two. Will consider taking shin pads next year. The ankle held out heroically throughout.
Encounters with the One-eyed Fell Runner
The only person I could keep up with in the second half of the race was a guy called Cristino who I’d met a few times before. He’s a rock climber, a race organizer and a qualified mountain running official. Occasionally he runs. Anyway, I made some blasé comment about us both being crap at running downhill and his response went on the lines of “well, my excuse is I’ve only got one eye… what’s yours?”
Now you try hopping down a steep succession of wobbly rocks with one eye closed. It’s incredibly difficult to judge distances. Add mist and water and the difficulty multiplies. I take my “fish is good for you” hat off to that man.
Thunder
Was relieved to reach the stony track again. This is more familiar terrain for me and I was able to lengthen my stride and reclaim a few places. Behind me the sky darkened and rumbled and gave added incentive to get back before the deluge.
The Finish
Finished the race just before all hell broke lose (torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightning. Maybe somebody had upset Jesus?). I was given a bottle of water, an apple, a magazine and a very smart, purple “technical t-shirt”.
Now call me a straw-chewing, 5-bar fence leaning country bumpkin if you wish but I didn’t actually know what a “camiseta técnica” was until they gave me one at Vigo last month. It sounded to me like something that Gromit might wear with his robot trousers (ex-Nasa?).
Postscript
The race made the local papers the next day because 2 runners forgot to turn around at Vizcodillo. Instead they went straight on, managing to get lost in the mist and reappearing 8 hours later and soaked to the skin in some far flung village in the neighbouring province of Zamora.
The Photos
Didn’t bother farting about with a camera this year. I had enough on my plate just getting through the race. Did manage a photo at the start with my two travelling compañeros from Ponferrada, Jose and Jorge. Both were taking part in their first mountain race. Jorge in particular has all the necessary qualities to be a great descender (long legs and a complete disregard for his own safety). Unfortunately he broke his big toe and was awarded a free ride in the ambulance on finishing.
The other photo is from last year’s event.
Next bit of action will be the Aquilianos on June 2. I’ll be walking the short route.
Great stuff. It's the kind of running I want to get into more. Wild and glorious. Not sure about the descending though; I tend to be very accident prone.
Good stuff, BB. Glad you're getting back into it. I like the idea of this sort of race, but I suppose one of the drawbacks is that I don't have the right sort of countryside round here to train much for it. Jogging along the canal in dead flat Berkshire doesn't quite match it.
Good luck to West Brom for Monday. Hope you manage to watch it somewhere.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Congratulations on your race and report, BB! It must be really interesting to take part in that sort of races in that beautiful part of the country. I wish I could go to the Aquilanos once. Perhaps I will do part of "Camino de Santiago" ( St James´ way ) on foot next July. It would be just from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela on foot in four days.
Best of luck at Aquilanos next Saturday! Maybe next year a group of RC forumites could do with you the long run.
This really is a superb event. Must admit that Im biased but my dad came along this year and provided a more objective point of view. And my suspicions were confirmed. This really is a superb event.
We were down for the shorter 48km route and had absolutely no intention of running. Its billed as a non-competitive outing and as long as youre inside the very accessible time limits when they stamp your route card at each control point, everyone is free to set their own pace.
This is also the one day in the year that I get up at the ridiculously early time of 5 oclock for fun. Just enough time for a quick breakfast and a dash up to the town hall where the Aquilianos begins at 6am.
400 or so people were mulling about in the darkness. Theres a great atmosphere and many familiar faces although some of los históricos were missing this year. Pedro the lumberjack and Carlos the copper were both injured and Ignacio string bean and Luciano the dentist havent shown up for a couple of years now. But at least some of the old faithful were out in force. Domingo the wiry old mountain goat and his sidekick cake-boy were there. So were the troop from La Bañeza which included the organizers of the Truchillas race. Also saw that the ghostly El Chepas had dusted down his 1970s running gear but I blinked and he was gone again. But this year there was a whiff of change in the air. Theres very little or no publicity but word has got around and a new, sleeker, high-tec generation is out there with their flash mountain gear and their glistening gym-toned torsos. There are lots of girls too. The man-woman ratio is closer than at any other event Ive taken part in over here.
Oh, and there was mad dog Jorge, my travelling companion in Truchillas 2 weeks before running the 66km mountain route with a broken toe. Hes definitely from the old school. Dad was amazed to see the bloke kitted out in vest and shorts as if at the start of a 10k. Later on, after the short and long routes had joined near the end we bumped into him eating a massive ham sandwich whilst his fellow competitors were stuffing sticky gels and energy bars down their necks.
The runners set off at race pace but the rest of as were bunched together for the first hour or so and there was much camaraderie. We left Ponferrada and hit the forest trails enveloped in the fresh aroma of the hills that surround us, of thyme and of a thousand different wild flowers. Dawn broke gradually and the dawn chorus provided the musical accompaniment. Here an i-pod would be sacrilege.
No epic tale of struggle against adversity followed. Just a rather pleasant stroll in the hills albeit quite a long one with a few slices of water melon thrown in. Dad struggled on the hills (even the shorter route involves about 1500m of climbing over the 48k) but made up good time as the route got longer and everybody tired. He ended up finishing fresher than me which just goes to show, when you get older and lose speed.. go ultra.
Couldnt write a report without listing the contents of the food and drink stations which were of the most varied imaginable. There were water melons, freshly picked cherries, foul tasting energy bars, pasties, ham and cheese baguettes, pears, bananas, yogurts, custard cream cakes (dad ate most of those) fruit juice, aquarius I was even handed a slice of quince jelly wedged between two slabs of home made bread. All this is well worth going slow for.
All sorts of people took part, from elite mountain runners trashing it out over the 2000m+ peaks of the long route to the pot-bellied restaurant owner/pub landlord from Mallorca who we met walking the short one. The Aquilianos is probably the best possible introduction to ultra or mountain running. You dont even have to run!
Congratulations, BB. I´m glad you and youd dad enjoyed the stroll. The scenery is wonderful. The green Spain. So different from here in the south.
I´d also love to do this race one year. Maybe next year.
If we can do a part of the "Camino de Santiago" in July, I´ll get in touch with you to meet in Ponferrada if it suits you. We´d like to start at Sarria in the province of Lugo but I don´t know yet if we´ll finally do it this year.
Sorry about Ponferradina going down to Second division B although yesterday they won.
Signed up for the marathon of Toral de los Vados. It’s on Sunday. The plan is to get to 25k in about 2 hours and then see what happens. The 25k drink station is my opt-out clause as it’s a stone’s throw away from where I live. If the final 17 kms are too dreadful to contemplate I’ll use my “get out of jail free” card. If not, it’ll be a run-walk the rest of the way to Toral.
My last road marathon was Toral de los Vados 2005. A great thing about keeping this diary is being able to look back at all the comments, facts and figures which I would have forgotten about otherwise. And seeing that I’d done significantly less preparation last time around reassures me a bit for Sunday.
Two years on and I still feel the same about the marathon. It is the mythical distance and the reference point for all the other long distance races. It’s also a nasty business and Toral is a particularly terrible piece of running-induced torture. It’s mostly flat with interminable, morale-sapping straight sections which can drive you crazy. By the second half of the race you’re likely to be running all alone and there’s very little in the way of spectator support. If it’s hot as well (and it generally is) you feel like some legionnaire staggering on through the desert in search of an oasis to break the monotony. At least here the oasis comes at 5km intervals.
I always look forward to the Aquilianos, to half marathons, 10ks, off road events, football matches or games of scrabble with my granny. The marathon however just fills me with fear. So why do I put myself through it? Well there aren’t many events to choose from in these parts and Toral’s a nicely organized, small scale “essence of running” sort of race which deserves to be supported. And I enjoy the feeling you get when you finish. Now that might sound a bit like saying I enjoy hitting myself on the head with a hammer for the sense of relief you get when the pain subsides. But such is the loneliness of the long distance runner, you end up doing strange things and I’ll be there at 8am on Sunday for the sixth time and hopefully I’ll be at the finish for the fifth time (the old opt-out clause came in handy one year).
For the record here’s the training since March. It includes 2 running events (Vigo and Truchillas) but I don’t include the Aquilianos as I walked it all.
Distance and number of runs.
2-4 kms 5
5-7 kms 13
8-10 kms 19
11-13 kms 6
14-16 kms 8
17-19 kms 2
20-25 kms 2
Just under 4 months and a total of 55 runs. My two “long” runs were the Vigo half marathon and a 24k run.
"And I enjoy the feeling you get when you finish. Now that might sound a bit like saying I enjoy hitting myself on the head with a hammer for the sense of relief you get when the pain subsides. But such is the loneliness of the long distance runner, you end up doing strange things".
I like that analogy. When people ask me if I enjoy running, I always say "I enjoy having run".
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Bierzo Baggie Wrote:This really is a superb event. Must admit that Im biased but my dad came along this year and provided a more objective point of view. And my suspicions were confirmed. This really is a superb event.
We were down for the shorter 48km route and had absolutely no intention of running. Its billed as a non-competitive outing and as long as youre inside the very accessible time limits when they stamp your route card at each control point, everyone is free to set their own pace.
This is also the one day in the year that I get up at the ridiculously early time of 5 oclock for fun. Just enough time for a quick breakfast and a dash up to the town hall where the Aquilianos begins at 6am.
400 or so people were mulling about in the darkness. Theres a great atmosphere and many familiar faces although some of los históricos were missing this year. Pedro the lumberjack and Carlos the copper were both injured and Ignacio string bean and Luciano the dentist havent shown up for a couple of years now. But at least some of the old faithful were out in force. Domingo the wiry old mountain goat and his sidekick cake-boy were there. So were the troop from La Bañeza which included the organizers of the Truchillas race. Also saw that the ghostly El Chepas had dusted down his 1970s running gear but I blinked and he was gone again. But this year there was a whiff of change in the air. Theres very little or no publicity but word has got around and a new, sleeker, high-tec generation is out there with their flash mountain gear and their glistening gym-toned torsos. There are lots of girls too. The man-woman ratio is closer than at any other event Ive taken part in over here.
Oh, and there was mad dog Jorge, my travelling companion in Truchillas 2 weeks before running the 66km mountain route with a broken toe. Hes definitely from the old school. Dad was amazed to see the bloke kitted out in vest and shorts as if at the start of a 10k. Later on, after the short and long routes had joined near the end we bumped into him eating a massive ham sandwich whilst his fellow competitors were stuffing sticky gels and energy bars down their necks.
The runners set off at race pace but the rest of as were bunched together for the first hour or so and there was much camaraderie. We left Ponferrada and hit the forest trails enveloped in the fresh aroma of the hills that surround us, of thyme and of a thousand different wild flowers. Dawn broke gradually and the dawn chorus provided the musical accompaniment. Here an i-pod would be sacrilege.
No epic tale of struggle against adversity followed. Just a rather pleasant stroll in the hills albeit quite a long one with a few slices of water melon thrown in. Dad struggled on the hills (even the shorter route involves about 1500m of climbing over the 48k) but made up good time as the route got longer and everybody tired. He ended up finishing fresher than me which just goes to show, when you get older and lose speed.. go ultra.
Couldnt write a report without listing the contents of the food and drink stations which were of the most varied imaginable. There were water melons, freshly picked cherries, foul tasting energy bars, pasties, ham and cheese baguettes, pears, bananas, yogurts, custard cream cakes (dad ate most of those) fruit juice, aquarius I was even handed a slice of quince jelly wedged between two slabs of home made bread. All this is well worth going slow for.
All sorts of people took part, from elite mountain runners trashing it out over the 2000m+ peaks of the long route to the pot-bellied restaurant owner/pub landlord from Mallorca who we met walking the short one. The Aquilianos is probably the best possible introduction to ultra or mountain running. You dont even have to run!
Sorry BB, I managed to miss your Aquilianos race report, which I've just caught up with. It looks like a great day out, and amazing scenery. We were within a gnat's whisker of coming over this year, but in the end I just didn't have the holiday to spare. I'm maxed out. Perhaps next year? I'm not sure how much running I could do up those mountains though -- that's more Sweder's department. We'll see.
But thanks for the report. I love the names of these characters.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
. Met up with Miguel the Prof for breakfast at a beachside café. A warm, sunny day beckoned and it felt like I was on my hols. Suddenly the beach became much more appealing than the half marathon course. 
![[Image: 15_Aquilianos07.jpg]](http://www.vayahistoria.com/waquilianos/images/15_Aquilianos07.jpg)
