This thread will not be about training. There has been very little of that.
This thread will be about an ancient, non indo-european tongue, musical tree trunks, a champion stone lifter, a toolshop owner from Mexico City, a BT engineer from the Lake District who holds a record that even Kilian Jornat repeatedly fails to beat. And there will be cheese, lots of cheese....
Strewth, a full marathon with 5K of climb and "Medium mountain, possibilities of intense heat, burning sun, strong winds, fog or rain". Not often you see that combination together. And an 8 hour cutoff doesn't sound very generous: if the course record is 3:54 then that's like a 4:10 cutoff for a road marathon.
The prologue has all the hallmarks of a classic BB tale... we await the first instalment. Good to have you back BB!
(22-04-2011, 09:01 PM)marathondan Wrote: Strewth, a full marathon with 5K of climb and "Medium mountain, possibilities of intense heat, burning sun, strong winds, fog or rain". Not often you see that combination together. And an 8 hour cutoff doesn't sound very generous: if the course record is 3:54 then that's like a 4:10 cutoff for a road marathon.
The figure given combines ascent and descent Dan. Only 2 ½ km of climbing then
The 8hr time limit should be accessible. I ran this race in 2003 and 2004 and got round in just over 6hrs although I was a lot fitter back then.
If you have time it’s worth watching the video. There’s one guy running in his traditional Basque shepherd outfit. His descending technique involved sliding down a long pole... he hardly touched the ground!
The snow last year surprised everybody. The most likely weather on the Aizkorri range in late May: cool, humid and perhaps misty up top.
Good to know you're still at large and running over there BB. I watched the film. It looks an amazing course and a real adventure. I wish I could get myself into shape to do stuff like that. I'm guessing you're referring to Rob Jebb. He's originally from Bradford and runs for Bingley Harriers. The amazing thing is that he's just as good on 2 wheels as a cyclo-cross rider. Phenomenomenal.
Really looking forward to the build up and race. You're going to do some training?
Yep, Rob Jebb it is, I thought he was from the lake district for some reason.
He broke the course record spectacularly in 2005 and only Kilian looks capable of going faster. Maybe this year.
Jebb was world skyrunning champion the same year as winning at Zegama. Was that outstanding achievement ever recognized in fell running circles?
The 8 hours to get round is actually quite generous. If you have a decent technique (for walking uphill/ jogging down) and don't mind the rough stuff it entails less training than for a conventional road marathon. At least that's what I'm hoping...
To understand the race you must know the land.
To understand the people you must learn the language.
Euskera; a strange, beautiful and mysterious sing-song language, perhaps neolithic... paleolithic even. It’s a language with a rich and varied vocabulary for ancient farming impliments (but somewhat lacking when it comes to modern terminology). It is one of three european languages that linguists cannot locate on the branches of the indo-european language tree (Finnish and Hungarian are the other two).
1993. I’m in this Sagardotegi (cider house) somewhere in the Sagardotegi triangle, south of Donosti (San Sebastian). The Sagardotegi is actually a lofty bodega full of barrels and hefty Basques gnawing on t-bone steaks. The food is placed on long, elevated tables. Cider spurts from the barrels and is caught ceremoniously in glass beakers by queues of diners below. The floor soon sloshes with juice and things get increasingly messy. Everybody stands to eat and drink. In fact there are no seats anywhere. One scrumpy-crazed maniac explains to us how the Basque people are the sole survivors of the lost city of Atlantis.
Some words in Euskera.
Hello: Kaixo
Goodbye: Agur
Yes: Bai
No: Ez
The people: Herri
The people of Euskera: Euskal Herria
Mountain: Mendi
Crag: Aitz
Exposed rocky crag: Aitzkorri
Runners: Korrikalarik (the k at the end indicates the plural).
There is at least one word in English which originates from Euskera.
Bizarre.
In English “bizarre” means odd or unusual.
In Euskera “bizar” means beard (and is pronounced in exactly the same way).
In both Spanish and French the word can be synonymous with “brave” or even “extravagent” . The word may have entered English via French, or directly from Euskera via the Bay of Biscay.
Expedititions of hairy sailors from Bilbao perhaps?
A linguistic journey from beard to weird, plenty of scope for the imagination there, tall tales for salty sea dogs as far-fetched as the man from Atlantis? Bizarre indeed.
So, I’m a korrikalari and I’m going to run in the most important Mendi Maratoia in Euskal Herria. Now this is a really big deal and I’m incredibly lucky to be there at all as the race is heavily over-subscribed. Many a young basque warrior would trade a year’s supply of T-bone steaks to be a korrikalari at Zegama.
Indeed physical activity and sport is pretty central to Basque culture, endurance and mountain sports in particular.
1994: Plaza de los Fueros: Vitoria (Gasteiz)
Top harrijasotzaile (stone lifter) Iñaki Perurena has just hauled an awkward lump of rock halfway up his body. He then releases it and the huge stone lands with an almighty thud which shakes the paving slabs and reverberates around the packed square. The crowd applauds and call out to him in an indecipherable dialect. Iñaki salutes his people.
Somebody comments that an English guy was wearing a t-shirt with one of Iñaki’s poems on and suddenly they are pushing me to the front.
I’d bought this t-shirt from the Kukuxumusu shop (kukuxumusu means “little flea”). In those days it was still a cottage industry. Now it’s a highly successful merchandising industry of multi-coloured Basqueness. On my t-shirt , several columns of colourful motifs represented the wide spectrum of Basque sports.
Harrijasoketa (stone lifting) Euko Pilota (squash type game played with the hands, gaelic handball?) Jai alai (similar to the above but using a wicker basket, incredibly fast). Aizkora Proba (wood chopping) Sokatira (tug of war) Estropadak (rowing) Ahari topeka (ram fighting) Idi Probak (ox dragging) Giza Probak (just dragging...)
All of the above was represented on my t-shirt and beneath the pictorial display were a couple of lines of poetry by the stone lifting bertsolari.
Bertsolari: maker of verses. One who composes,sings and improvises in Euskera, oral poet, neolitic rapper...
Iñaki Perurena lifted a 350kg stone in 1990 and then went on to lift a 250kg stone 3 times with one hand.
In 1999 he lifted a 100kg stone continuosly for 5 hours and 4 minutes until he had lifted the bastard 1000 times!!
He was invited to compete in The World’s Strongest Man but declined. Too far from home perhaps..too busy writing poems.
So suddenly they are pushing me to the front and Perurena is signing my T-shirt. His biceps were thicker than my waist.
Iñaki Perurena isn’t running in the Zegama-Aizkorri this year, that’s for sure (unless they’ve employed him to clear the route of boulders) but I thought he epitimizes the spirit of Basque sport in its habitually rural context, be it stone lifting, ram fighting, rowing or mountain running. Brute force tinged with poetry.
I'm sorry, I thought for a minute you said he lifted a 350 kilo stone.
That's equivalent to lifting me, SP and El Gordo whilst each of us clung onto several cases of beer.
*gulp*
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
OK, so I’ve insensitively labelled it tree-trunk music and technically that’s not right. The txalaparta is a percussion instrument usually played by 2 people and which consists of 2 parallel planks of wood of up to 2 metres in length. Each musician strikes the planks with two thick sticks. The end product is something rudimentary, intriguing and very Basque.
I’m told that its origins take us back to the cider house. The same board that was used to press the apples was then played to call the neighbours and music would continue as the cider was drunk.
1992Donosti (San Sebastian)
“Stop talking in Spanish Urko, this is an English class!”
“Ha ha! ...we no talking in Spanish, we talking in Euskera”.
To be honest, at that stage I couldn’t even tell the difference. Young Urko had just come back from his trikitixa class. As far as I could make out the trikitixa was a small accordian. Found it curious that a 12-year old boy should want to learn to play the accordian but he wasn’t the only one. Several kids were being instructed by a young music tutor named Kepa.
More about Kepa later.
The point is that in the early 90s a revival of traditional instruments was underway and dozens of kids were their swapping gameboys for trikitixas.
The txalaparta was part of that revival.
So what’s all this got to do with the Zegama-Aitkorri Mendi Maratoia?
Well, every film must have a soundtrack. For a short film on fell running Glaconman chose the atmospheric music of Phillip Cobb. For Zegama-Aitzkorri I’d open up with a bit of tree trunk music wafting across the village square to accompany the pre-race rituals. The txalaparta, an instrument as minimalist as the sport itself, will start off at a slow, clip clop canter and build up to a crescendo of cow bells.
No talk about training so far. There’s been relatively little. Must admit that it was only a series of coincidences that led me to be in the list of race starters and I was taken a bit by surprise. Decided that it was too good an opportunity to miss though.
Blind faith in a few important factors will hopefully get me around.
This is not a conventional race and conventional rules do not apply. No point being able to run for 2 hours if you spend the next 4 crawling. Get the walking in early, that’s what I say.
Strong walking uphill and some downhill running technique are important. Continuous running is less of a factor if your aim is just to finish ...just as well..
On Sunday I’m going to Busmayor. This will be ideal preparation for 3 weeks time. In fact the total elevation and distance of the all-new Busmayor circuit will be very similar to the Zegama-Aizkorri one. It has been given the Basurko treatment.
Basurko, is the ultra running butcher and he’s an ultra freak and not a mountain bum. So, the Busmayor route, whilst demanding, will be more akin to pure trail running. This means there will be no firebreaks, rock scrambling or river wading. Basurko is organizing this year and he likes his races to be ones you can run, otherwise it just ain’t running.. it’s something else, and he’s probably right.
Anyway, this is Sunday’s route. Aim to walk half (ascents and some flats) and run the other half. We’ll see how it goes.
Rang up the village of Busmayor this morning. They said I could sign up for the race half an hour before the 8 o’clock start. There are only 28 runners, 29 if I show up. This isn’t surprising as it was only announced 3 weeks ago.
Basurko by the way was the first Spanish finisher in this year’s Lanzarote DOUBLE ironman triathlon (the race was won by the ultra running joiner from Grimsby).
The “k” is rarely used in Spanish so Basurko’s surname is Basque. No surprise there then..
(06-05-2011, 09:09 PM)Bierzo Baggie Wrote: There are only 28 runners, 29 if I show up. This isn’t surprising...
No, it isn't.
Basurko? Berko, more like... no, this is seriously serious stuff, BB. Tell me, do you wear your underpants over your tights? You definitely need a cape!
(07-05-2011, 08:55 AM)Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote: You definitely need a cape!
Nah not really, it’s not continuous running (far more demanding in my opinion whatever the gradient) and I can drop out whenever I want which isn’t a problem at my age.
This is the test for Zegama-Aizkorri.
And last year there was a trophy and a live chicken for the winner...
El Bierzo’s first ever mountain marathon was run last Sunday. I went because;
1. a first edition..not to be missed.
2. it took place in an area I haven’t really explored before.
3. good preparaion for Zegama-Aizkorri.
There were 38 starters and everybody finished except a group of 4 or 5 who got lost and came down from the hills too soon.
Billed as a mountain marathon, it was more a race with big hills rather than pointy, rocky mountains. There was plenty of trail and dirt track. Some sections were fast but there were also tricky descents over slippery stones, ankle clutching roots and shoe sucking bogs, certainly more than I’d expected. Hats off to Basurko and the Busmayor folk, the inaugural marathon distance circuit was a gem.
Took the camera, something to take my mind off the running, and it proved fine company. The photos are blurred but the camera was a bargain bucket job that I bought in Lidel 7 years ago and I‘d only gone in to buy some milk.
The morning went something like this:
Arrived at the village at 7:15. It was teeming with rain and there was nobody else around except 2 blokes loading a bright yellow station wagon with bottles of water and aquarius. The race was due to start at 8 but nobody seemed in a hurry. This was a wonderfully low key affair that reminded me of the days before spaceman rucksacks and compression retro-socks.
The runners turned up in 2s and 3s as daylight crawled along the valley and revealed green meadows and exuberant vegetable patches. Didn’t recognize too many people. Joined up with Bill and Ben the flowerpot men.
Bill and Ben are regulars on the offroad running scene. They are two tough guys with chiselled features, heavy and lumbering of stride but reliable and relentless on the endless open trails, architypical ultra runners and always strong at the finish. Bill and Ben always run together, whatever the distance they are never separated by more than a few metres. If the race is over 20k I know they’ll be waiting for me at the finish. In comparison I am light and sprightly...but mentally weak.
At 8 o’clock Basurko the ultra running butcher started the race. He said something like “well, we’d better get going then...” and we did. I sarted off in last place, not for the first time (and neither will it be for the last).
The Route
The first half was the nicest. We ran through pleasant green meadows in the lower valleys, woods of oak, beech and pine higher up and then uglier sections above the trees that were scarred by years of bush fires. Below we glimpsed the land that time forgot as we straddled the invisible frontier between Galicia and León, tight little clusters of slate roofed hovels abandoned long ago.
The organization
Most of the drink stations were unmanned. In fact the 2 blokes and the bright yellow sation wagon seemed to be running the whole show. The route was marked by wooden stakes with little red running figures painted at the top, all very ecological and unobstrusive. At times it felt a bit like a paper chase. Tables with water bottles appeared as if by magic from the least suspected of places.
Time
Aimed to walk half and run half. This translates roughly to 21k in 2 hours and 21k in 4 hours. My finishing time was just under 6 hours so that was about right. Zegama-Aizkorri will be harder and more technical but I’m now confident I can finish within the 8 hour time limit.
I moved nimbly through the wooded sections and descended ok but struggled to keep going on the flatter trails and felt as if I was taking a break whilst striding uphill..does that sound strange?
The ascents
The 2 main climbs were ugly. One of the main attractions of the race for me was Monte Capeloso, the highest point at 1600m, because I’d never been up here befoe. It’s a peak that stands out from the rest a bit like La Guiana in the Aquilianos. I posed for a photo at the “punto geodesico” at the top.
The finish
Hey, 5 hours 52 minutes wasn’t bad at all, but most of the others, including Bill and Ben, had finished a while ago. There had also been a walking route and a “cross alpino” at the same time as the marathon. The walkers and the people from the village had scoffed all the food by the time I wandered into the food tent. And there was nobody at the finish either. In fact I just crossed the line and went 20 metres straight ahead to my car, it was all a bit weird. It didn’t bother me as I’d come for a day out in the hills but 5 or 6 who finished behind me weren’t impressed.
Problems
There were bad moments too. I gave my kagool and gloves to a bloke in a jeep and regretted it an hour later when my hands went numb. Eating and drinking were also a problem. Something gave me the shits and it certainly spoilt my enjoyment of the second half of the race. The numb hands compounded the problem and things got a bit messy.. Then there was the old problem of my glasses steaming up in humid conditions which affected my visibility on descents. Used a buff as a headband and ended up looking like a samuri. But all in all this was a useful exercise and nowhere near as punishing as it might sound. 42k walk-run over 6 hours is far easier than 42k run-run over 4 hours for example.
It must be hard to do 21 km running and another 21 walking. I´d rather run/jog ten minutes and walk another 10 minutes or walk when going up steep hills or going down dangerous hills.
(15-05-2011, 02:27 PM)anlu247 Wrote: I´d rather run/jog ten minutes and walk another 10 minutes or walk when going up steep hills or going down dangerous hills.
Saludos desde Almería.
Thanks Antonio, that's more or less what I did. Don't think I ran for any longer than 20 minutes at any one time. Walked uphill, ran-walked the flat sections and ran downhill....half and half overall.
By the way, sorry about Almeria going down. They've had a good 3(?) seasons in the first division.
Things just got a lot livelier around here! 
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