Update

[Bierzo Baggie]

Summer’s a strange sort of season. I’ve generally got more free time in July and August but the heat makes it unsuitable for running long distances. There is usually a scattering of interesting races and with the off-road running boom bringing all sorts of new people onto the hills there are a few new races for the calendar.

August 12th I Carrera de montaña de Molinaseca.
Great little circuit which I already know from previous escapades. There’s one long climb along a narrow twisting path and a short, rocky descent back to the village. Finished halfway down the field just in front of this bloke who used to play for Real Madrid.
12km in 70 minutes
At a guess I’d say more ex-footballers and ex-cyclists are drawn to these races than those from a traditional athletics background.

Another ex-footballer (the man who used to play for Sporting Gijon reserves) won the first prize in the post-race raffle which was a live sheep.



Don’t know who looks more worried, man or sheep...

August 18th VII Cross alpino de Morla.
A good old-fashioned race amongst an increasingly glossy panorama of events organized by tanned, muscular chaps who spend rather too much time in gymnasiums. By old-fashioned I mean that it’s free, genuinely open to all-comers and that they ply you with wine and garlic soup afterwards. Always worth a visit then.

Went with Bulgarian Pete who ran his first ever race in an extremely smart Hristo Stoichkov shirt from the 1994 World Cup. As ever it was hot, dusty and the descents were littered with ankle jarring debris of all shapes and sizes.
9k in 53 minutes, 21st out of 49.
Pete’s ticket came up in the post-race raffle and we crossed the Morredero pass back to El Bierzo with several bars of Castrocontrigo chocolate, one large U-shaped stick of chorizo, a bottle of wine and a box of biscuits. Quite relieved it wasn’t another sheep squashed into the back seat...

Have only managed to run 3 times in September but I'm down for a race on Saturday. It's going to be one of those where I'll wait and see how I feel in the morning...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

You have the most fascinating runs and the most intetresting photos of those runs of anyone in RC! Fabulous stuff BB, keep it coming!

[Bierzo Baggie]

This place has gone trail running crazy over the last couple of years. There’s a race somewhere nearby almost every weekend nowadays and most of them are off-road.

10-15 years ago there was very little, maybe a half marathon or two, usually designed for the elite end of the field, the Aquilianos (which was originally a walking event) and Truchillas.

The region certainly lends itself to mountain biking and trail running and as mentioned we are in full boom at the moment. Bizarrely, this is partly fuelled by the Spanish economic crisis. Almost overnight thousands of men have been laid off from local mines, factories and constuction firms which means lots of people at home with a lot of time on their hands.The trails invite, if only to burn off a bit of frustration...

Here is another curious image from Molinaseca. We were led out by a possee of horsemen in shades. Lots of tough boys in this village as I found in my football days...



Number 60 won the sheep.

The Espino race tomorrow is another new one. I’m going with the legendary Pedro the lumberjack.

[El Gordo]

This place has gone trail running crazy over the last couple of years. There’s a race somewhere nearby almost every weekend nowadays and most of them are off-road.

10-15 years ago there was very little, maybe a half marathon or two, usually designed for the elite end of the field, the Aquilianos (which was originally a walking event) and Truchillas.

The region certainly lends itself to mountain biking and trail running and as mentioned we are in full boom at the moment. Bizarrely, this is partly fuelled by the Spanish economic crisis. Almost overnight thousands of men have been laid off from local mines, factories and constuction firms which means lots of people at home with a lot of time on their hands.The trails invite, if only to burn off a bit of frustration...

Here is another curious image from Molinaseca. We were led out by a possee of horsemen in shades. Lots of tough boys in this village as I found in my football days...



Number 60 won the sheep.

The Espino race tomorrow is another new one. I’m going with the legendary Pedro the lumberjack.

Forget number 60, I was more curious about number 90....

[Bierzo Baggie]

Forget number 60, I was more curious about number 90....

That's Raquel, the girl with the concave stomach, 8th overall at Molinaseca and 6th at Morla, revelation runner of 2012....

[El Gordo]

Forget number 60, I was more curious about number 90....

That's Raquel, the girl with the concave stomach, 8th overall at Molinaseca and 6th at Morla, revelation runner of 2012....

One to watch then...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Forget number 60, I was more curious about number 90....

That's Raquel, the girl with the concave stomach, 8th overall at Molinaseca and 6th at Morla, revelation runner of 2012....

One to watch then...

[Bierzo Baggie]

One to watch then...

...and watch her I did. I watched her for the first 500m as she disappeared into the distance. This fragile-looking young lady can certainly run quickly and efficiently over rough, rocky terrain.

Anyway, the all-new Espino race took us through silent pine forests and over the scorched scrub summits of the surrounding hills, a zone which I’d never explored before. It was more trail running than mountain running and at 25k it was a little too long and a little too fast for me. But I got around.

These are the hills where my race companion (for the first 5k at least) puts in his 10 hour shifts from Monday to Friday in the logging industry (I’m told the word “lumberjack” isn’t used any more except by those with nostalgia for Monty Python). Things are grim. Pedro hasn’t been paid for nearly 2 months now and some workers are even 3 or 4 months in arrears. Half the country is bankrupt and there are difficult times ahead. But that was yesterday. Today the trails and the smell of pine resin..

Pedro had a few crafty fags before and after the race. He’s smoking rollies these days and a few of his anecdotes over those first, easy kilometres convinced me that he’s the long lost Spanish cousin of “iron” Joss Naylor. He’s got the right genes, his grandad lived (and worked his own allotment) until he was 102. And like farming, the demands of Pedro’s work certainly help tone mountain running prowess. With this sort of background you can permit yourself the odd indulgence and still finish in the prizes.

The gradient steepened as we left the sheltered river valley and I broke into a strategical walk. Pedro pushed on with a relentless run and reclaimed a few places. It was a training run around familiar territory for him today. Snapped a few photos of runners and walkers (there was a shorter walking event which sometimes coincided with the race). It helped ease my suffering and take my mind off it all. Above the pine woods the harsh baked landscape is as yet untorched, but with drought conditions becoming the norm rather than the exception, expect all this to go up in smoke sooner or later. It will be sadly spectacular and I’ll be able to see it from my kitchen window.

By the time we were descending back to Espino via the usual firebreaks of mashed up stone, the soles of my feet were cooked and my legs were too beaten up to respond. Linked up with a guy who jumped out the bushes having taken a short cut and I finished the race with him. No grudge to bear .... I’d probably have done the same if I’d known where I was going.

Our reward? A bottle of wine, a luminous yellow t-shirt and a bite to eat in the shadow of the rusty hulk of Espino’s old cattle market, whilst the kids grappled with a climbing wall and a bouncy castle. Gus the lottery seller and Rachel of the concave tum were the predictable winners. Another race completed and we’re walkin’ in a Bierzo wonderland...

25k: 2hours 35 minutes. Very very tired but still intact.

Photos here. https://picasaweb.google.com/bierzobaggie/ElEspino2012

[glaconman]

Great effort BB. Looks like a bl**dy glorious day out. I know a tree surgeon who's in his late forties and still hitting the podium for off-road marathons. Decades of core conditioning. No coincidence.

Thanks for the write-up and photos. I'm reading the Adharanand Finn book 'Running with the Kenyans' at the mo. Which is certainly enjoyable. But I can't help feeling your tales from Leon and Galicia would be a better read. Whenever you happen to get a year-off to pull it all together of course

[marathondan]

I know a tree surgeon who's in his late forties and still hitting the podium for off-road marathons. Decades of core conditioning.

Yep, it's all about having a strong trunk.

[marathondan]

But yes, thanks for another great tale BB. Makes me think I should be entering more than one event per year, when I get back up to speed.

[Antonio247]

Congratulations, BB! Great challenge and beautiful report!

[Sweder]

This remains my favourite place within RC. The brutal yet beautiful terrain, the colourful characters, descriptions that lure and repel all at once. My romantic heart yearns to run with these wildmen, my realistic brain knows how much it would hurt and how far behind I'd trail. The thought of getting lost out there would keep me up nights. It's heartbreaking to know that people are struggling there. Here in the UK we whine into our smartphones about the 'recession', yet many of us know little of real hardship.

I second Dan's call for a compendium of BB's true tall tales.
I'd buy it.

[El Gordo]

This remains my favourite place within RC. The brutal yet beautiful terrain, the colourful characters, descriptions that lure and repel all at once. My romantic heart yearns to run with these wildmen, my realistic brain knows how much it would hurt and how far behind I'd trail. The thought of getting lost out there would keep me up nights. It's heartbreaking to know that people are struggling there. Here in the UK we whine into our smartphones about the 'recession', yet many of us know little of real hardship.

I second Dan's call for a compendium of BB's true tall tales.
I'd buy it.

Agree. Another corker. Fascinating characters and heart-warming human stories, told in a 'voice' that is spot on in its understated way. And now playing out against a crumbling economic/social landscape as well as the spectacular physical one. As others have said, there is a book waiting to bust out of all this, as long as we can all agree on the allocation of royalties....

Great report, BB. Thank you.

[marathondan]

I second Dan's call for a compendium of BB's true tall tales. I'd buy it.

It was actually GM, but I agree anyway! There is some seriously good material here. Books have been written based on much more flimsy ideas. Throw in some social history too. I think the region may strike a chord with UK readers: (from the Wikipedia page for El Bierzo) "Starting in the late 1980s most mines were closed, and after the collapse of the mining industry the region was for a while in a crisis...."

[Bierzo Baggie]

Don't think I'm up to writing a book. Wouldn't know where to start...
Love swapping stories with you lot though!

[Sweder]

As and when I retire, impossibly wealthy with absolutely no demands on my time, I am going to hire a top team to compile that Best Of RC tome we've talked about. If that pans out I'll get them to stitch one together just for you. The tales are all there, we just need some finely spun thread to stitch it all together, maybe an intro, a little historical background. Oh, and a good illustrator.

I see it as a sort of Feet In The Clouds meets the Brothers Grimm.
I'll hire Terry Gilliam to direct the movie

[glaconman]

Which is harder, an Ironman or a book deal? Maybe both deserve the claret and drawing room treatment. Although wealth and retirement would put everything in a different light certainly.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

At least the book and film deal would be a team effort. I second Sweder's idea of hiring Terry Gilliam for the fillum. Definitely!

[El Gordo]

I'll start a spreadsheet.