The cold season.

[Bierzo Baggie]

In the last few years this enjoyable almost-10K has become the ideal way to end the running year. It takes place invariably on the last Sunday before Christmas and is a singular event for several reasons.

1. It’s always bollock-freezing cold.
This year the thermometer read -3ºC as we entered Lugo but this rose to a near tropical +3º once the mist lifted.

2. The visit to ye olde “Café Del Centro” in the Plaza Mayor.
This has become the obligatory pre-race ritual once the race numbers have been collected. Here faint hearted runners, myself included, excuse themselves from the long-winded limbering and stretching routines taking place outside. Much more attractive are the coffee and churros in the elegant surroundings of Lugo’s oldest café with its dainty little tables, its neo-classical decoration and its friendly old school waiters with their dickie bows. The inevitable dash outside is thus delayed until the last possible moment and a place at the back of the field is small price to pay for avoiding hyperthermia. If I were to make a top ten favourite cafes compilation, this one would head the list.

3. The Lugo almost-10K is an attractive and unique circuit.
The last 2kms run along the UNESCO world heritage site roman walls which encircle the old part of town. This makes for a memorable finish as you come down from the walls and dash across the Plaza Mayor.

4. The race is free. You get a personalized race number, a technical t-shirt, chip timing and a text message to your mobile with your finishing time. Only thing lacking were the mince pies…

Not surprisingly every year an increasing number of Ponferrada runners make the journey over the snowy Piedrafita pass to take part in this most excellent race. I went this year with Baltazar, the wise man from the cement factory and we bumped into Isaac the engine and the big man from Ozuela amongst others.

The race itself went well and my chip time was 41 and a half minutes, exactly the same time as I ran in my first ever 10K many, many years ago.

Baltazar, who is a veteran marathon runner and ex-organizer of the Toral de los Vados marathon confessed to me that this was actually his first ever 10K in 25 years of running!

So it’s goodbye to 2008. I reckon I’ve clocked up about 1000kms this year and I’ve averaged a race a month, most of them trail-type events. I’ve tried to record all these races here as some of them have been pretty interesting.

Merry Christmas to y’all!! Hope 2009 brings a bumper crop of runner’s tales.