Life after Picos.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Part One: III Maraton de montaña de Galicia 2008.

I think it's been mentioned here that very occasionally a myriad of factors fall miraculously into line to create a perfect, or near perfect run. A bit like a solar eclipse... err, except with more factors and less science. Well, that happened to me last Sunday.

I'd signed up for the Mountain Marathon of Galicia in the aftermath of Picos where I was unable to finish the race. I didn't even know that Galicia had a mountain marathon until Brian-Riazor Blue mentioned it on one of my visits to his shop. A quick map check revealed that it was only an hour and a half from home.... tempting.

The race's official name is "Penedos do Lobo" which translated from the galician language means something like "the rocky crags of the wolf". It sounded promising.

And there were several non-running factors which encouraged me to fill in the inscription form.
Tourism for example.
Penedos do Lobo is situated in an area of the deepest, darkest Orense badlands that I'd never previously visited. And Orense is a province of Galicia which on the map is dotted with quaint sounding galician names, intriguingly isolated hamlets and lots of hills. I'd call them hills more than mountains. Seen from afar the granite outcrops which emerge from the rising moor land make it look a bit like Dartmoor, only drier, harsher and dare I say uglier. For Los Penedos in Orense read Tors in Devonshire.

Another incentive was that it made for an ideal family outing. The race starts and finishes in the ski station of Manzaneda, the most westerly ski station in Europe. That means that there are all the facilities you'd expect unlike other races I've done where the start/ finish line is in some semi-abandoned village, where you get changed in your car and you shower in the local sheep dip.

However, my wife is normally very wary of my using the words “race” and “family outing,” in the same sentence.

OK, running for me is a fairly solitary activity although I wouldn’t call it a selfish one. I prefer to see it as an inconspicuous and undisruptive sort of lifestyle choice which these days takes place early morning and does me more good than harm. No, running’s fine, it is internet where the subversion lies. In fact, sad man that I am, it’s probably only here on the internet that I ever talk to anybody about running. I don’t run just to take part in races and I don’t have much concept of “progress” and “improvement” when it comes to racing but I must say that I thoroughly enjoy the race-day atmosphere and I also enjoy writing about it.

My Spanish family don’t really get it though.

When I’ve done some race on a Sunday morning they’ll sometimes ask
“¿Qué tal la caminata?” which means “how was the stroll?”.
Once after one “maraton of Toral de los Vados,” my father in law, a galician man through and through who speaks the lingo (“gallego” it’s called), asked me how many kilometres we had run. When I said 42 he almost choked on his stewed octopus. I haven’t brought the subject up again since.

So, I booked an apartment at the Manzaneda ski station and told Mrs BB about it a week before when it was too late for her to think up a decent excuse. If she’d refused to go I probably wouldn’t have bothered either. I’d already pushed my luck with Picos and although fellow runners might find what we do “normal” (there’s a lot more running tradition amongst my family in the UK) buggering off for the day by myself to run around in circles doesn’t always go done well in my immediate environs. Anyway, much to my surprise Mrs BB wasn’t totally against the idea of a weekend at the ski station. This was an altogether unexpected development. I hadn’t run more than 10K since June and suddenly... slap, bang, wallop, I had a full-whack marathon rearing up under the shadow of those mighty granite slabs.

No bailing out now though. Managed to get in a last-minute longish run to at least convince myself that I could finish and on Saturday we headed for wolf-country.

The hills of Orense aren’t pretty. Generations of forest fires have left behind a landscape of thorny, scrub like vegetation or no vegetation at all. The lonely, nondescript villages we pass through have very little of interest except perhaps the occasional mule, strong handsome beasts still accustomed to a full working week. We also passed vineyards hanging from the driest most inaccessible places imaginable. Found it difficult nay impossible to imagine these hills as a playground for galician and portuguese skiers in the winter months.

As we wound our way upwards through this bleak, bone-dry terrain the ski lifts glinted in the distance. The rocky crags of the wolf decorated the far horizon. The ski station itself was hidden amongst a pleasant enclave of pine trees and promised to be the most attractive feature of the zone..until the apartments came into view. Discreetly screened by the pines the apartments resembled some sort of rundown 1970s housing estate in West Bromwich. A few thousand coats of paint were undoubtably in order.

Anyway, we got comfortable, explored the grounds and found a play park for Lara. This would be the first time my 3-year old daughter had ever seen me run and I was bent on doing the done thing and crossing the finish line hand in hand. More on that later...

All boded well for Sunday. Nice weather, sunny, but at 1500m altitude it was considerably cooler than in the baking Bierzo basin. An inflatable finish line was all pumped up, chill-out music wafted across the ski station and the participants who had chosen to spend the night in Manzaneda were arriving in their cars and their camper vans. The restaurant opened and we went for a meal.

Part Two: The Race.

The morning, as expected, was chilly and clear.

About 300 runners and walkers and a few dogs set off at 8 o’clock and we all followed a succession of fairly unattractive forest trails and fire-breaks. Much of it was runnable and only occasionally was the monotony broken by cross-country sections across grassy, open moor land all impeccably marked by little red sticks. I attacked the first hills with my run-walk technique which worked very well and enabled me to reel in many of the run-run head-bangers near the end of the climbs. Passed through the half marathon in 2 hours 6 minutes, way ahead of schedule. Suffered a tad on a long, tricky descent and then on the final climb through the rocky crags but managed to overcome tiredness on realizing that I was on for an amazing sub-5 hour finish. The final 2kms were through the pine forest along a comfortable trail which opened out to the ski station and the home straight. Here I spotted Mrs BB and Lara. I somehow found an extra ounce of energy to hurdle a barrier and try to grab my daughter’s hand.

This was to be the glorious parent-offspring end-of-marathon ritual, the icing on the cake to a perfect run. Only Lara had other ideas... not surprising really. As Mrs BB pointed out later, one horribly sweaty dad covered in mud and firebreak dust emerging from the woods with an “I love fish” cap perched on the wrong way around would be enough to terrify any 3-year old.

She hid behind her mum and wouldn’t come out, leaving me with the slightly embarrassing task of climbing the barrier again and hobbling across the line by myself. There was sympathetic applause.

So, all the factors lined up benevolently and I surprised myself. The weather had been fine, not too hot and not too cold. For the first time I achieved mid-table respectability in a mountain marathon when I’d least expected it. In fact the course turned out to be ideal for me, being only semi-technical in places and with lots of runnable sections. The two major climbs were steep but not over-long. Also I’d stuffed myself with food the day before which I reckon proved even more decisive on the day than my water intake. But most importantly of all we had all spent an enjoyable weekend in a pleasant environment away from the hustle and bustle. Who knows? I might just persuade them that this running lark ain’t so bad after all....


Footnote.
Noticed that the winner, who finished in 3 hours 28 minutes, was Aurelio Olivar Roldan... hmm, that name rang a bell. It turned out that this guy was 7th in the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc 2 weeks ago (demoted to 15th for eating an illicit chocolate bar!) So, he had done this unbelievably gruelling 166km mountain ultra and two weeks later he is winning a mountain marathon in a course record time. I’m sorry but Mr Michael Phelps is a part timer....