This is a race I never expected to run/walk again. I’d run it in 2003 and 2004 when it was not so oversubscribed and when I was younger and fitter.
Also Zegama is 5 hours away, too far for a day-trip.
But this year my sister-in-law happened to be working nearby and we were going to visit the weekend of the RACE so.... I signed up without too many aspirations.
Unsurprisingly my number didn’t come up in the draw, but as the only applicant from the province of León I was given a wildcard entry.
Number 179.
World skyrunning series race.
42km: 2700m vertical ascent 2700m descent.
Technical rocky terrain.
8 hour time limit.
Gulp.
There followed several frenetic Sunday mornings of activity. My preparation consisted of the races I recorded here and some long routes in the Aquilianos. Very little running was involved. In fact I haven’t been able to run at all during the week for a few months.
I was confident I could get round within the 8 hour limit off minimal training if my walking was strong and with the advantage of prior knowledge of the course. In the end it was a very close call.
It all started on Friday afternoon in Mrs Woo’s shop...
The word "cliffhanger" seems inappropriate for a mountain race report, but you've got us on tenterhooks already...
(Aside - I wondered: what the hell are tenterhooks exactly? So I looked it up. Tenterhook: one of the hooks or bent nails that hold cloth stretched on a tenter. Obvious, really.)
(07-06-2011, 08:02 AM)marathondan Wrote: (Aside - I wondered: what the hell are tenterhooks exactly? So I looked it up. Tenterhook: one of the hooks or bent nails that hold cloth stretched on a tenter. Obvious, really.)
Thanks for that Dan.
As I was saying....
Mrs Woo’s daughter comes to the English classes and she told me that her mum had a fine selection of kagools all in different colours.
Just what I needed.
I’d noticed that ISF (international skyrunning federation) regulations insist on rainwear for most races and although the weekend forecast for Zegama was hot and sunny they probably wouldn’t turn a blind eye. I decided to take something small and light that would fit snugly inside a bumbag. The “chubasquero” I’d used at Busmayor was far too bulky and I’d ended up scrunching it up and carrying it in my hand before eventually offloading it!
So, to Mrs Woo’s shop I went where I was sold a bright yellow rain poncho for 60 cents.
Just the job.
Little did we know that this innocent purchase would play a major role in the events ahead.
6:30: Sunday morning. Start the one hour drive to Zegama from Miranda del Ebro.
The police stop me at the first roundabout out of town.
“Good morning sir, have you been drinking alcohol?”
“No officer, I haven’t.”
“Then you may continue.”
They didn’t even ask me to blow ffs! They probably took one look at me and thought “this weirdo’s on his way to Zegama, he can drink all the cider he wants!”
Entered the Basque Country. Left the motorway and immediately joined a caravan of vehicles descending the tortuous hairpins through the woods which lead to Mecca, Zegama and its very singular race.
The village is a hive of activity. Volunteers with fluorescent coats direct me to the nearest parking place. It’s a long way away, at the top of a hill on the very edge of the village. No worries, there’s plenty of time.
Amble down the hill to the start. There are a lot of camper vans. One belongs to the Andorran mountain running team, another to the Catalans. Hear French, Italian and Russian. Also hear more Basque than Spanish. And all the while Aitzkorri and her rocky edge rears up overhead. Her presence is overwhelming.
10 minutes to the start and I join the queue to enter the korrikalari warm-up area. There’s not a cloud in the sky but they’re still checking for the mandatory rainwear. I open the bumbag and the race official shakes his head firmly.
“No vale,” ..this ones not allowed.
“Eh, ...it’s a rain poncho.”
“No vale, you can’t enter.”
Shit.. and I’m not the only one. There’s this exasperated French guy who looks like a serious skyunner and who doesn’t understand what the the race official is telling him. I show him Mrs Woo’s rain poncho... “no vale.”
And I have 10 minutes to find ISF regulation rainwear, before the French do...if not, my race is over before it's started.
Couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t let me run. All the race official would say was that Mrs Woo’s rain poncho was a crappy plastic one that would lead to almost certain death on the exposed slopes of Aitzorri.
A moment of panic set in and then improvisation took over.
Plan A. Run back to the car and look for another kagool.
Plan B. Hide behind a bush and sneak into the race once it had started.
Ran back up the hill. I’m already out of breath. Meanwhile the pre-race rituals are well underway in the village square. Melodic folk music wafts across the valley. A “dantzari”(basque dancer) performs a little “aurresku” (dance of honour) in homage to the runners and a bertsolari improvises a few verses. Of course I miss out on all of this.
Find a slightly thicker but equally crappy plastic mac in the back of the car. Hope this will be enough to avoid plan B.
Then tear back down the hill yelling “CHUBASQUERO.”
An ambulance crew suddenly look shocked and go ssshhhhh!! in unison. Unfortunately my windcheater war-cry had coincided with a minute’s silence in memory of one of the race organizers recently deceased mother. Whoops! ...they won’t be inviting me again.
Anyway, the same bloke tells me that my replacement plastic kagool wasn’t plastic but was made of a fine technical fabric hand-woven by gnomes which was just fine by me. I pass through.
The Zegama parish church clock is barely seconds away from striking 9 o’clock. It’s all been pretty stressful up to now. No time to take in the atmosphere. No time to rub shoulders with King Kilian or to say hello to Lightfoot and Owens.
Everybody around me looks like they’ve been training for this race for months. Some look as though they’ve been training for this race all their life.
For one moment I ask the inevitable question, “what am I doing here?”
Come to think of it I very nearly wasn’t.
For the first time I caught sight of the Basque shepherd. Anybody who saw the 2010 race video (posted at the beginning of this thread) may have seen this gentleman descending the Aizkorri range with the help of a couple of sharpened, hand-whittled poles as slender as bamboo but a good deal stronger.
The shepherd is a healthy-looking guy, looks to be in his 50s, but is probably over 60. He is wearing loose blue trousers held up by a buckled, black leather belt into which his non-plastic, plastic raincoat is neatly tucked. His only concession to modernity is a sleeveless t-shirt with his race number pinned on. Number 333.
And here’s what really amazes me. His trousers are tucked into a pair of thick woollen socks and on his feet he proudly models a pair of “abarkas,” authentic shepherd’s calfskin sandles from days of yore.
I looked around at the other runners. There are 500 or so assembled, from all over Euskadi, Spain and the rest of Europe. They are jigging, jogging and jumping nervously, impatiently awaiting the 9 o’clock call. On 500 pairs of feet are top of the range, state of the art, specialized running shoes. The majority are from the Salomon brand. They have names like;
speedcross 2
XT Wings2 GTX
S-lab 3XT Wings
XA Pro 3D Ultra GTX
I mean, are these really trainers or components from some sort of space rocket?
And the shepherd is just standing there with a few strips of cured veal between him and the floor.
Wow!
Just had to take a photo of those shoes.
The church clock strikes 9 o’clock and we’re off.
I would have liked to have written about a pleasant Sunday morning sampling the race, soaking in the atmosphere, dotted with quirky social anthropological asides, in a land where the very essence of mountain running seeps through every porous limestone crag.
I would have liked to have told how I breezed around the course waving at the people and taking photos.
But the reality was one micro-tale of survival within the great Zegama-Aizkorri challenge in which I unsuccessfully tried to keep up with a Basque shepherd. Forgot about the camera very quickly as all my energies were channelled into getting up the next eye popping ascent or over the next rocky obstacle, without dislocating an ankle or worse.
So, at long last, to the race report....my only pretention was survival and if I could... to follow the shepherd.
We start with one lap of the village which gives me time to tie one kagool around my waist and dump the yellow rain poncho in the first wheelie bin.
Said goodbye to the worst 50p I’ve ever spent.
Then spent the next few kilometres still recovering from chubascero stress syndrome. It took me a while to get into my stride. Hills I remember running 8 years ago I now walked cautiously, matching my stride to the clickety-click of the shepherd’s sticks. He was like a txalapartari soloist (remember, tree trunk music..) marking a rhythm for the waves of strange, garishly-clad guests to his hillside, his ancestral workplace.
It was already too hot and the heat was the worst enemy for many of us. At some points the temperature topped 30º. The humidity in the woods made you sweat faster than your body could assimilate liquids and above the trees the sun blazed mercilessly. Passed at least 3 athletes who were throwing up and perhaps 20% of the field abandoned which is unusual. Normally the people who run here are well-prepared and the drop out rate in other years was minimal.
Another problem for me was the hard ground, especially the rutted turf where the cows had passed. It was easy to twist an ankle if you weren’t concentrating. I twisted both which put paid to making up time on the descents.
Passed another English guy on the way up Monte Aratz. If I was going slowly he was going backwards. And this was only the first climb of 3.
“This isn’t running, it’s hill walking” he said. I had to agree.
I was now 3rd Brit behind Tom Owens and Ricky Lightfoot. Err, a very long way behind them actually.
Started to struggle. Realized it was going to be a long morning. Descended over rocks and stones through a natural tunnel and to Santu Spiritu, the start of the climb up Aizkorri. This is where the race really begins.
Ask for the cut-off time at the checkpoint. 5 minutes away I’m told. Shit, that’s cutting it fine... and I shoot off just as the shepherd arrives to milk up more applause.
And the applause is just incredible. It’s like the Tour de bloody France at times.
Hundreds of people, thousands perhaps, perched on rocks, forming corridors, hollering and cheering,
AUPA AUPA EUTSI EUTSI
There were Basque flags and Catalan flags and kids with cowbells and airhorns.
[img][/img]
Here’s a link to the photos on the race web page. There’s a great photo of the shepherd as he came steaming past me. At no point did I see him run, but his pace was relentless.
And it’s about here that I start to notice the man in black hovering just below, sweeping up the backmarkers, the stragglers and the heat stricken pukers. It’s here I suddenly remember a classic piece of RC writing, Andy’s Zurich marathon, the menacing presence of a bus and a quote from the rhyme of the ancient mariner.
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head.
Because he knows a fearful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The man in black was “the escobar,” the sweeper. He didn’t resemble a bus, more like the grim reaper.
The grim reaper wears the number 000 pinned to his shirt. Hallucinating in the hazy heat I read 666.
And suddenly The Pixies are screaming in my head; “And if the devil is six, then God is seven, then God is seven, then God is seven.”
No, Frank Black, God isn’t seven. God is 3, number 333 to be precise. God is a Basque shepherd. God has just shot past me with a knotted hankerchief on his head!
Funny what the heat can do...
The wild cheers from the summit of Aizkorri tell me that the shepherd has arrived and he must be at least 5 minutes ahead.
AUPA AUPA EUTSI EUTSI
My initial reaction was to give up. This was the end. Aizkorri was a fine place to finish my race and I’d got halfway. But then one last surge of adrenaline pushed me forward.
I thought of the long journey I had made to Zegama.
I thought of the tough Sunday morning sessions in the Aquilianos.
I thought of my family waiting expectantly at the finish line.
But most importantly I thought of the cheese, the generous dollop of Idiazabal cheese awarded to all finishers. You can’t go to the moon and come back cheeseless, can you?
So, it was thinking of cheese that drove me to the top of Aizkorri with the grim reaper on my trail. Hardly had time to gulp down a cup of water before hitting the rocky ridge, 2 kilometres of scrambling along the limestone wall.
A stocky guy sweating profusely propels himself past me.
“We’ve only got half an hour to reach Aixurri,” he calls urgently.
Aixurri is the peak at the end of the range and the big descent comes immediately after. Half an hour sounds like plenty of time but the grim reaper is putting the fear of God into everybody!
Risk a cheeky glance backwards.
“You’re not going to chuck us out now we’ve done the hard part are you?”
The grim reaper smiled. “You’ve got 20 minutes.”
Descended horribly. My right knee was aching. In more than 20 years of running my right knee has never ached. It’s aching now.
Reached still waters. Pastureland, calm alpine meadows dotted with cows.
“The Lord’s my shepherd, I'll not want; He makes me down to lie. In pastures green; he leadeth me. The quiet waters by.”
Here I was able to make up time and when I looked back the grim reaper was a distant speck, walking with another fellow in black. If the other fellow was a second grim reaper then I was briefly the last person actively taking part in the race.
Pass a guy sitting on the floor with cramp. Encourage him to walk on with me but end up leaving him to the men in black.
Anaraitz is the final climb. Pass another guy sitting down. He says he’s feeling sick and waves me on. Emerged through one last sea of rocks where I got a man with a dog to take my photo.
I reckon I’m home and dry now. There are still 12km to cover but it’s nearly all downhill through the forest, usually my favourite terrain. Out of the sun’s glare I start to run more regularly. Meet up with a Catalan who is hobbling. The shepherd can’t be far away. Hear music from the village, still a long way below. Think of the cheese.
At the last drink station a fellow on a deck chair calls me by name.
“León province,” he says “I did the military service there.”
“You said the same to me 8 years ago, and that it was full of soldiers and priests,” I replied.
Everybody laughed and I sat down on an adjacent deck chair and we chatted for a couple of minutes. I’ve a feeling he was Alberto the race organizer. We shook hands and I was on my way.
Come out of the woods and descend a concrete track into Zegama. High five my daughter and my nephew and cross the finish line.
7 hours 38 minutes. I’m last but 3. But I’ve earnt my cheese.
You did indeed BB. A crackin' report. The picture of you and the sheperd on the official race site is a beauty. One for the scrapbook, or even the kitchen wall I'd say.
I'd love to run in a race like that. I suspect I don't have the feet or the ankles for it at the moment. One day maybe.
Hoo-bloody-ray!!
What an adventure! THAT's the kind of reckless madness I need to re-stoke the fires! Well done BB, a tremendous effort to finish the race and a very entertaining report to boot.
Cheese all round!
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
This thread has delivered extraordinary pleasure, and I'm ashamed to confess I didn't know it existed until a couple of hours ago. An epic, from that incredible opening film, through the background information, the rivalries, BB's preliminary races, and the superb folk music that I allowed to drift on in the background as I plunged on through the tale.
And what a tale it was. Phew. It is right up there with Sweder's South African epic, and the Steyning Stinger and Jog Shop Jog and all those other legendary blood-and-guts reports.
All I can say is thank you BB, and well done - on the race, the writing, and for having such a generous awareness of the people and the traditions. While I'm sorry I missed it 'live', I have to say that reading it all from start to finish is a great experience.
Just fantastic. Thread of the year so far.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
It´s been wonderful to read the whole report. I´ve read it all in a go since I hadn´t noticed it before. It´s really motivating. I wish I could be fit enough to do it next year.
Thanks for all the comments. I enjoyed writing about this race more than running it.
Postscript.
1. Of course Kilian Jornet won again but was forced to dig deep in an epic struggle with Scotland’s Tom Owens. And Owens became only the fifth man to go below 4 hours at Zegama. In fact the best races always seem to be when top UK fell runners meet up with the cream of the local mountain runners. Rob Jebb’s record still stands for another year.
2. The shepherd’s name was Benito and I still don’t know if he was a real shepherd. He’s a bit of a local celebrity and takes part in all the local long distance events, always wearing his “abarkas” and a “txapela” (a big black beret).
3. In the end there was a 3 minute penalty for anybody “without suitable rainwear”. This affected many of the French runners and altered the podium in the case of the ladys’ race.
4. The cheese didn’t survive the journey home. Once unwrapped it produced a pungent, acidic odour and was already mouldy around the edges. Reluctantly binned it.
(21-06-2011, 10:16 PM)Bierzo Baggie Wrote: The cheese didn’t survive the journey home. Once unwrapped it produced a pungent, acidic odour and was already mouldy around the edges. Reluctantly binned it.
And there is the lesson for us all, my friends. A man may run, walk and crawl 26 miles over a craggy mountain, yet the much-coveted prize turns out to be a bit of mouldy cheese. It's the journey that counts, not the trinket at the end. Particularly if the trinket is an unpasteurised dairy product.
Thanks again BB, a classic race and a classic report.
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