Three people stand on an isolated patch of Mediterranean beach, staring at the hundreds of flamingos preening themselves at the water’s edge.
Behind them lie miles of mottled, lunar landscape. Over there in the far, far distance a sharp eye could just make out a line of cranes, marking the start of one of Europe’s largest and most anarchic construction sites. Armies of foreigners, Germans mainly, seem to want to buy retirement homes here in Roquetas, and the skeletons of a thousand concrete mausoleums mark out the final resting place of their sunlit dreams.
Se vende, se vende.
Nothing exists yet, but it’s all se vende.
It’s funny how things only half-built can look almost identical to those in a state of decay. As if the process of construction contains some admonitory, portentous glimpse of the future — if only we are alert enough to catch it.
Antonio says: “Here, we are far from the madding crowd”
I chuckle. “A good description”.
“But not original, I know. I am a great reader of Thomas Hardy,” he says.
“Well, I don’t think he originated the phrase either”, I reply.
Antonio continued: “I once spent a week in Dorchester, the town that Hardy called Casterbridge”. After a pause, he starts to recite the titles he’s read. When the Hardy list is finished, he begins on George Orwell.
“Homage To Catalonia… Animal Farm… Nineteen Eighty Four… Down And Out In Paris And London….”
Kerching.
Down And Out In Paris And London.
It’s a long time since I even thought about that book — perhaps decades — but I’m excited to be reminded of it. I interrupt him. “Hold on, hold on. Down And Out In Paris And London“?
I explain that it was one of the first ‘grown up’ books I ever read.
How could I have forgotten it? The book that put a bullet through the head of my childhood.
One weekend.
Bang.
And everything changed.
Suddenly, aged twelve or thirteen, I was a semi-adult.
Down And Out In Paris And London made me want to change the world, or to change myself so that I could find this other world I’d discovered in Orwell. It was the book that made me restless and dissatisfied with the life I’d been allocated. It prised open the trapdoor to adulthood, and to writing, and to travelling.
There wasn’t much conventional travelling you could do at that age, so you had to run away from home instead.
It took a while to get started, but I ran away from home a total of four times. Caught and brought home all but once. I’m still running. Still looking over my shoulder.
The first was the briefest jaunt. I was in Devon, camping with some school friends. Fifteen years old. Just finished our O’Levels.
One day I walked out of the camp without telling anyone where I was going, and hitch-hiked to Dartmoor. My destination was only 80 miles away, but to a kid on his own it seemed a very long journey. In my hand was a pamphlet I’d bought from the campsite shop entitled Great Moorland Walks. One in particular, The Abbot’s Way, thrilled me.
Arriving finally in Buckfastleigh, on the eastern fringe of the moor, at 9pm, I rang the bell of Buckfast Abbey, a Benedictine monastery dating back to the 11th century.
Eventually, a monk in a brown habit opened the door. And what a door.
Could I stay the night?
He asked nothing in return. “Of course. Come in”.
Brother Joseph. He took me to the large dining hall and sat me at the end of a long, polished table. The monks at the other end took no notice of me. They weren’t a very talkative bunch.
I was given bread and cheese and a glass of cider.
The bed was hard, and I must have woken every time the bell struck the hour. But I was so excited by what I was doing. I felt no fear, and I didn’t wonder if other people were worried about me.
In the morning, there was freshly baked bread and coffee for breakfast. Brother Joseph asked me what my plans were. I told him I was going to walk The Abbot’s Way.
Pause.
“It’s a long path”, he said. “Are you prepared?”
I wasn’t sure if I understood the question. Was he talking about the walk? Or something more profound? I said yes thanks, I was.
As I was leaving, I surprised myself by asking: “Do you have any advice for me?”
Without hesitation, Brother Joseph said: “Consider a career in dentistry. Dentists are in short supply, and the pay is good.”
With that, we shook hands, and I set off to walk nearly 30 miles across some of the bleakest moorland in England in a pair of plimsolls, and with no food or water to fuel the journey.
Within minutes, I was on the moor.
Love at first sight.
I was a London kid. Never seen landscape like this before. Bleak and pure, and utterly silent barring the… the wind in the rocks and the haunting, lonesome cry of the curlew.
Within a mile, I was lost, but I didn’t mind. I liked it. Some gust of joy had appeared from nowhere, and filled the sails of my imagination. On a day of no food, and only occasional mouthfuls of stream water, it was all I had to propel me through the ten hours it took to reach Tavistock. I’d been on Earth for 15 years, and here was my first taste of liberation. Life could never the same again — and it wasn’t.
None of this was mentioned to Antonio, as we stood on the beach. But staring at those flamingos, I thought things I hadn’t thought for a while.
My Dartmoor jaunt was the first bit of real travelling I ever did. But what does “travelling” mean? It’s not much to do with distance and passports. It’s something to do with exploration and moving out of your normal space. Just walking to the Co-op on the corner can be pretty exciting if you keep your senses open. Every time I run I feel I’m embarking on some kind of journey. The antidote to rain and cold. It’s why I see the weather as a lubricant, not an impediment. If others see bad weather as an obstacle or an excuse, that’s fine. It illustrates the well-worn point: that we run for different reasons and with different instincts.
Almeria is a striking province, and the town itself is handsome. Unlike many of the coastal settlements along this stretch of the Mediterranean, it isn’t disfigured by semi-completed hotels and apartment blocks, and hoardings offering enticements to Northern European holidaymakers. Almeria is a real place — a regular town with wide avenues lined with orange trees, and palms along the seafront.
The foreign contingent (5 Brits and a Canadian) had arrived at the airport on Saturday morning, around 9 a.m., and soon found Antonio. Renting a vehicle from an office in an old Transit van in the car park didn’t fill me with much confidence, but the Fiesta Diesel was new and it got us to the elegant Hotel Torreluz without trouble.
After an hour or two of R and R, we met in the lobby and followed Antonio to the small race expo to collect our race numbers and goody bag. This race is tremendous value for money. For €6 (about £4), you get a tee-shirt, an invitation to the pasta dinner, a pen, a key-ring, the use of a timing chip and a sports bag and an isotonic drink. And oh yeah, a half marathon thrown in.
The pasta dinner at the youth hostel brought back memories of clamorous school catering. Slightly chaotic scenes wound up the pre-race excitement a bit more, but no one minded that. No shortage of food. Essentially we were each given two meals – a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce, and another plate of roast chicken and salad. Plus a baguette and an apple.
The evening finished with a totter up the Rambla for a final cup of deliciously gloopy chocolate.
A later-than-usual breakfast on race morning produced some anxious moments. Was I leaving enough time for the toast and banana and coffee to sink deep enough into my intestines to ensure that they stayed there?
More anxiety as the hotel delivered me the wrong (albeit better) car to take us to the start of the race at the smart new stadium built for the Mediterranean Games in the summer of 2005.
But all was well. We got to the start line with plenty of time to bitch about the sleek, sharp-looking Spaniards. “They’ll go off too fast. We’ll catch them before the end”, predicted Nigel through gritted teeth. “Yeah”, I said. “Remember the tortoise and the hare.”
A hesitant start, but we eventually moved off. The first stretch took us alongside a line of light industrial units, and some new apartments, beneath a concrete bridge and past some rusty railings. My race plan, to keep up with Suzie, worked brilliantly for the first half mile, then fell apart. She chugged ahead of me and I decided to stick with the advice of my GPS gadget that was telling me I was already 0.15 of a mile ahead of target. Target? I’d set the ‘virtual partner’ feature to 2:15. This was an optimistic aim, 5 minutes faster than my PB.
Up ahead of me, perhaps 100 metres away, I could see Andy SP, and there he stayed for the entire race. I seemed unable to make up any ground on him. Frustrating, yes, but pleasing that he never got away.
After the opening mile or so we had to move up a couple of gears. La Rambla wasn’t as steep as some of my more sensitive colleagues seemed to think, but it was as long and as gruelling as a Huddersfield winter.
Early optimism soon drained away. I felt wretched. Oh, the drudgery of trudging.
Just as I was reaching the end of the first draft of my suicide note, something wonderful happened. Three wonderful things in a row, in fact. The corner was turned, and the incline came to an end. As we turned sharp left, a water station greeted us. Then the long descent began.
Descent. A hill is just an investment in later running pleasure, after all, and every inch of that long, slow incline was now translated into a long, fast downward slope.
A fourth cheering moment came halfway down when I saw my wife, M, waving frantically. The encouragement helped. I knew she’d rather be swooning through the shoe shops or the art gallery.
As I came to the end of the long downhill stretch and swung left again towards the stadium at the end of the first lap, a motorbike drew up beside me, and the police rider gestured for me to move over to the side. For a bizarre moment I thought he wanted to check my credentials or something, but no, he was just warning me that the leaders were coming through.
What happened next reminded me why running is the king of all participation sports.
The race leader appeared alongside me without warning. Made of nothing but a piece of glistening muscle, he seemed to bounce and lope along with zero effort. No obvious sign of strain or fatigue, or even concentration. Instinctively, I began to clap furiously. It was all I could think to do as the world’s greatest ever distance runner, Haile Gebrselassie, deigned to overtake me in a race. The sound made him throw a languorous glance my way, looking for all the world like a wistful young Nelson Mandela. The exchange of looks was fleeting. I’d love to be able to report that Haile Gebrselassie smiled at me, or even raised a contemptuous eyebrow. Even better, that he pulled up alongside me and said: “Cripes, you’re the geezer with that website, aren’t you? I think you’ve got me beat this time, mate. I’m all in.”
But no, all I got from Haile was a glance. Then he saw the gap, and went for it, skipping past me while I was distracted…
OK, so he was on his second lap, 10 miles into the race, while I was still on the first, 5 miles behind him, but still. To have Haile Gebrselassie overtake me in a competitive running race must have been the greatest thrill I’ve had in my short plodding career. I could have cried.
While the great man veered off towards the finish line, I plunged on through the halfway point. Approaching the roundabout where I was to turn back on myself to start the second lap, my travelling companions suddenly came up the opposite side of the road, towards me. First it was Ash and Nigel, followed a few minutes later by Antonio. Not far behind the plucky Spaniard came Suzie. I reached the large roundabout just as Andy SP was just coming out of it.
The second ascent of La Rambla wasn’t so bad. Turning into the incline once again, my GPS ‘virtual partner’ told me I was 0.25 miles ahead of schedule. Terrific news, but the hill was still ahead of me, and I was beginning to feel drained and vulnerable now. I thought: if I’m still ahead of target when I turn at the top, I might just have a chance of a PB. But that was the last time I allowed those initials to enter my thoughts. This was my 27th race, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake 26 times over. No chickens would be counted this time.
It’s a miracle, but this time I don’t really feel the hill at all. Second time around, it doesn’t bother trying to intimidate me again. I know what to expect now, so it’s beaten.
As I turn at the top to start the descent, my watch says I’m still 0.15 mile ahead of target. But I’m also tiring now, and I need to run the last 4 miles at the same rate as the first 9 to have a chance of… a chance of? Oh, nothing….
What;s this? Halfway down the other side my speed increases markedly. I pull my stomach in, and try to look nonchalantly athletic. Not easy in my case, but with M’s video camera visible a hundred yards ahead, worth a go.
The bottom of the hill is reached, and now it’s the long, windy run-in. I’m aware of only the odd gust, though later, the others wimpily complain of its strength. Perhaps I’m anaesthetised now. Certainly I’m knackered. 10 miles, 11 miles, 12 miles…
I try catching Andy SP. He’s been ahead of me all race, about half a centimetre high in the distance. I up my pace as I see him stop to walk. What a shock he’ll get, I think with sadistic glee. But I do not catch him.
The final mile was lonely and cold and draining, but the knowledge that it was the final mile kept it doable.
Round a corner and bingo: there was the stadium.
Down a very steep ramp and into the stadium, where a few hundred spectators remained to clap in the back-markers. Amongst them were Sweder, Nigel, Suzie and Antonio who gave me real encouragement as I plodded towards the finishing line. Just as I reached it, the barrier made me realise that I had another full lap to do before the true finish. This was a cruel and painful last stretch, but by now I didn’t care. My watch told me what I hadn’t wanted to think about — that I was going to get a 5 minute PB. What a relief that was. It was the fifth attempt I’d made to beat the half marathon PB at Silverstone in March 2003.
Ash and Nigel had made 1:54, Suzie 2:08, Antonio 2:11 and the other Andy 2:14. I came in a minute later in 2:15, 920th out of 941.
Oh yeah, and some bloke called Haile Gebrselassie made it in 1:01. But he didn’t get a PB….. Huh!
I have to acknowledge one of the heroes of the day: José, Antonio’s brother, who followed us round the course all morning on his bike, dispensing water and snacks, and taking pictures.
Back at the car, I heard Ash say: “Right, I must just ring my wife to tell her the bad news. That I’m still alive…”. We stretched and munched cereal bars and scraped the salt off our faces. How good it all felt.
And we run because we like it,
Through the broad bright land.
The revelry didn’t begin immediately. We’re middle-aged, remember? We had to hobble back to the hotel for a bath and a nice cup of tea. Only then could we snort a line or two of Sanatogen, and get the party underway.
The first phase of the celebrations was pretty restrained. We walked down to the seafront and settled into a sunlit restaurant where we had a few beers, chomped through the plat du jour menu and enjoyed a glass or two of Cava. The carousing became a bit more traditional later that evening, when we went Guinness-hunting in a couple of the local bars.
It was a good evening. All post-race evenings are good, but this one, in Spain, after a PB, spending time with some of the Running Commentary forumites, was better than usual. My fellow runners were no longer distant foghorns in the night. We’d all become real which, with some irony, made the whole thing rather surreal. It was as though a bunch of characters had stepped from a book and become flesh and blood. Profoundly enjoyable, but ever so slightly disturbing. Hard not to be overawed by the whole thing.
After the Guinness ordinaire, we sank through the local lager, surfacing again in a few glasses of decent Rioja. I didn’t think crianza wines were supposed to age too well, but this ’96 was doing just fine. Before we left, we drank a toast to the Internet, and resolved to meet again on some other shore somewhere. Running is an odd fusion of reflective isolation and raucous fraternalism. The chance to take bites out of other people’s lives, and to offer up yourself in return.
Breakfast on Monday was notable for two statements from Andy – ‘Seafront Plodder’. First was the lamest excuse ever. He’d love to go for a recovery run, he told us, but he couldn’t because his towel was a bit damp. And if his towel was a bit damp, how could he have a shower? Then I heard him say “Tuesday? I thought Tuesday was next week.” Needless to say, the towel excuse was rejected, and he was soon dragged out by Nigel and Sweder for a seafront plod, Almeria style.
Our goodbyes were said. Handshakes, hugs and kisses were distributed as appropriate, in keeping with the normal rules. It had been a memorable weekend, but now it was over.
M and I loaded up the hire car and drove out of town.
