Almeria 2010 begins with the customary pain of a 4 a.m. alarm. Barely 40 minutes later, it’s terminal chaos: part of the submissive throng oozing through Gatwick security. Flying used to be part of the pleasure of an overseas break, but no longer. It’s now a penance; a punishment for trying to escape from the prison of daily routine.
We queue. We dismantle our careful packing. We remove our dignity and parade it. Want an eyeful of my life? Here you are. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. I pass muster, and half an hour later it’s the more pleasant experience of coffee with the Sussex quartet: Ash (Sweder), Julie (LadyRunner), Tracey, and Simon.
I flew out with much to think about. The day before had seen visits to Phil the sports therapist, and to the Drummond Clinic. A half hour of comfortingly brutal massage at the former, and 90 minutes of gait talk at the latter, to help me understand the source of my calf problems.
The Drummond studio is located unpromisingly above a shop in Queen Street, Maidenhead, which provides a frisson of nostalgia.
I used to work in this street.
Perhaps “work” is too dishonest a word to describe the creaking lack of activity and productivity. I would turn up and drink coffee and talk football, and surf the web while awaiting the next IT project. Spells of sloth are theoretically fine, but in practice they lose their gloss all too quickly. By nature we are creatures of movement, purpose and creativity. Relaxation is good, but intellectual drift and unscheduled stasis soon feels uncomfortable and unnatural. The more the knots tighten, the longer they take to undo.
And so it is with running. Post-race downtime is a marvellous thing, but inertia forged by injury stokes anxiety and frustration, and even the occasional “why bother?”
I was allocated Aaron, a cheerful, enthusiastic young guy who seemed to know his foot onions. If he didn’t, his impersonation of a gait expert was convincing. We began with a treadmill test, bounding for a couple of minutes in two of the pairs of shoes I’d brought with me. Then a spell in bare feet. The exercise was filmed — and what an X-rated movie it turned out to be.
Watching the result together on a computer screen, I felt embarrassed at my ungainly, inefficient form. I exhibit quite pronounced pronation, particularly in my left foot. The slow motion showed my foot slapping the ground with heel and mid-foot, before rolling inwards on some involuntary impulse. As was explained with the help of a superimposed vertical line, this unnatural movement sends a tremor up my skeleton, forcing the lower leg to contort and strain in an admirable rescue effort, as it struggles to retain equilibrium. I could actually see my own left calf twisting.
Even more illuminating was the diagnosis: that this isn’t essentially a foot problem. The foot is itself merely an unfortunate conduit, a temporary recipient of the problem. In this painful relay, the calf gets it from the foot, but the foot gets it from my gelatinous arse (or “underpowered glutes”, as Aaron more tactfully put it), which in turn is a product of my weak core. Translation? Too fat and puny in the centre of my body. The weak core is writing cheques that my poor feet and poorer calf muscles ultimately struggle to pay.
In the meantime, the pronation is causing me to propel myself in a semi-elliptical movement rather than a strictly forward one. This confirms something I noticed in the video snatches of me in the Boston Marathon, when I was struck by how increasingly inefficient and slovenly I looked as the race progressed, and as I tired. I seemed to be going from side-to-side rather than forward. The great irony of this is that the longer the race goes on, the more tired I get, and so the more inefficiently I run, making the task disproportionately harder, tiring me further. It becomes a circular, self-generating plummet.
Conclusion? If I want to improve my running, and crucially, if I want to resolve the calf issues, I have to work hard on my core, and on improving my flexibility, particularly on the left side. Phil had suggested something very similar some time ago, but typically, I didn’t give it the serious attention it apparently deserved. I’ve paid only lip service to core strength building, doing some sit-ups once a week or so, and occasionally dropping into a Pilates class. Not good enough.
By coincidence, discussing this with Ash over early morning coffee at Gatwick, I learn that he has received a very similar verdict on the state of his long-suffering hamstrings. He called his diagnosis “flabby arse syndrome” which I believe can be considered a parallel condition.
So there we are. Time to get my balls out: medicine and fitness, and devise a regimen of frequent exercises and stretching. If I’m rigorous about it, I could notice results “within four to six weeks”, apparently. This is the glorious challenge: sticking with something tough and frequent for more than a month before any evidence of improvement might appear. Can I do it? Do I have a realistic alternative?
To their credit, Aaron and the Drummond Clinic didn’t immediately jump in with a recommendation for orthotics, which is a central part of their business. They seemed genuinely to want to solve the problem. They didn’t dismiss the idea of different shoes or orthotics, but counselled that I should first try to correct the problem, or at least reduce it, before they reassess the need for other solutions. The thinking is that if they prescribe orthotics now, before I set the controls for the heart of the bum, there’s every chance that the prescription, should one be necessary, would be different. “Try this first; let the dust settle; and let’s take another look” seemed to be the approach. I liked that. It gave me confidence in them.
Malaga was as warm and welcoming as the clinic. Swooping low over a diamond sea, dusty yellow mountains brightly lit in the distance, lifted my spirits. For a while, my fatigue was over. This is why we like to come here at the end of January: it’s a slash of colour on the grey canvas of winter.
Within a half hour we’d collected the scarred minibus, and were heading for Almeria via Granada. The first few minutes of the journey were entertaining, until I eventually remembered how to operate a gear lever. A while later, I recalled that we had to drive on the wrong side of the road too. Excitement over.
These complications are a new development in my Almeria experience. Until 2 years ago, we could hop on at Gatwick, and off again at Almeria. But that service is no longer offered on the day we normally arrive and leave, so now we schlep from Malaga or (last year) Murcia. I wasn’t on the trip last year. My mum was seriously ill, and died on the day I was due to fly out. There aren’t many things more important than the annual Almeria trip, but my mother’s death is one of them.
There’s something to be said for a 3 hour drive through Spain in search of your destination. We headed out past the sprawling San Miguel brewery, up towards Loja on the A-92. The undulating terrain provides a constant change of pace and perspective. One minute desert and cactii; the next olive plantations, vineyards, and (according to an insistent Ash) giant broccoli. Eventually, the fabulous snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada come into view. A while later, Granada. We decide to visit the Alhambra, but after parking up, find that we can’t see anything without queuing up and paying. Disappointing. From a nearby cafe, where Tracey and Julie admirably shout up a couple of late morning cervezas, we catch a glimpse of a distant Moorish turret. Ha! I have seen the Alhambra after all.
We hungrily scoff the first of many offerings of jamon and queso and tortilla. You will never die of protein deprivation in this country. The girls drink their giggly beers while the sensible men suck up coffee and water and discuss weighty subjects. Like their diets. Then it’s off again. This time, Ash drives for the final hour or so it takes to get us past the next range of snowy mountains, and down into Almeria.
It’s the Indalo Tryp Hotel once again, this time surrounded by roadworks and mesh fences and no-entry signs. Is this Almeria? Or Baghdad? Like much of coastal Spain, this part of the town has become a dusty building site. It’s a decent hotel, but as with the flights, we later wonder whether we might consider a change next year. Somewhere closer to the centre.
The customary trip to the supermercado next door to stock up with bananas and warm bread and oranges and water. This will be my raceday breakfast.
Then sleep.
At seven, we meet the celebrated Antonio in reception. He is the same as ever, and will always be the same as ever: permanently anxious on our behalf. When he runs out of his own worries, he becomes a surrogate worrier, agonising over matters that we are too stupid to realise are appalling hazards. He is the kingpin of the weekend: planning, explaining options, making magnanimous speeches, assembling charming countrymen to entertain us, and perhaps to be entertained by us. He sees problems and opportunities invisible to us. This is antoniovision, and where would we be without it? Probably not in Almeria.
The expo, if this isn’t too grand a word for the number pick-up, is at the Hotel Vincci this year, about 10 minutes walk away, up the hill. Before they release my number, they want to see my Commentario Corriente membership card. Ooops. I should have stuck with the original English, like my cleverer colleagues. Confusion. But Antonioil is poured on these choppy waters, and all is once again calm and orderly. Or as calm and orderly as they ever can be in Spain.
Another twist in this year’s tale is the pre-race meal. This megaleg feast is normally included in the cost of entry, but after last year’s aborted start put a dent in the public relations value of the event, the organisers generously offered free entry this year. The resulting drop in income meant a few economies had to be made, among which was the meal. The loss of the free meal wasn’t a big deal, but the resulting non-appearance of Carmen and Encarna, and Antonio’s other mates who have become so familiar to us over the past few years, was a disappointment. We see these guys briefly, just once a year, but to my sentimental eyes, they’ve become friends.
Instead, we moved back into the town centre to sample La Tagliatelle. Apart from Simon, who discovered a sizeable chunk of wire brush in his spaghetti, but Britishly opted not to raise the matter with the management, we found the meal to be a positive experience. A huge portion of pasta was the unspoken requirement, and a huge portion of pasta was delivered.
Let’s get on with the race.
I’ll cut through the precious flannel: the bald fact is that I DNF-ed. But it’s OK, really. Despite the earlier bravado, I had started to have serious doubts about even starting the race, never mind getting to the end. Yes, I ran a dotted 13 miles a week earlier, but this was in my own time and on my own terms. A few days later, I tried a modest 4 miler, and broke down. No other exercise through the week. Approaching the weekend, I felt nervous and unprepared.
The morning of the race didn’t help. We arrived at el stadio, got out of the van and went for a modest 300 metre warm-up jog. Immediately, I felt the calf pulsing with quite sharp pain. What to do?
What I did was spend 10 to 15 minutes of intensive stretching and rubbing. I found a step and did some long slow calf raises. Against the astoundingly stinky toilet wall, I found space to stretch. Miraculously, this seemed to help. The pain didn’t exactly vanish, but it did seem to dethrob. How long would it last?
The weather was glorious. Perhaps too glorious. How luxurious for January, to have genuine warmth and sunshine at 10 in the morning.
As expected, we had a farcical start to the race. For one terrible moment, we thought things might go right for a change, but it was with great relief that just as we were lining up, a great hullabaloo arose, and hundreds of runners up ahead of us turned round and starting feverishly pushing through us, eager to get to somewhere behind us. What was happening? Antonio went into overdrive, as a tidal wave of elites threatened to overwhelm us. No-one, least of all them, could explain where they were going. They were just following the guy in front. We joined the panic-stricken stampede, dropping down into the stadium again, along the corridor beneath the main stand, along to the end and up again, and along the road… to the place we were standing at just a few moments earlier. Panic over. Hurrah for Almeria!
It was a beautiful day not to run a race. The sun was already high in a cloudless sky. Not what we have come to expect here. It’s usually a cool grey morning, often showery. Not this time. The race began.
The leg was OK to start with, but another problem arose to take its place. Within a few hundred metres I was desperate for a pee. This wasn’t unexpected. I’d glugged a half litre of water before leaving the hotel, and it hadn’t yet appeared at the other end, despite an attempted expulsion in the devastatingly malodorous public toilet at the stadium. I gave up trying before asphyxiation claimed me. It left me with a problem. Opportunities for discreet urination do not abound in this race. Just as we were leaving the environs of el stadio, I noticed a runner emerging from behind a shed-like structure. This could mean only one thing. In fact, the building turned out to be a public toilet. But it was locked. Worse, a woman and two small children were wandering towards me, about 50 yards away. Sorry ladies, too bad; a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do… but annoyingly, not instantly.
By the time I’d succeeded and got back to the race, there was no race to be seen. The sweeper bike had gone way past, been around the roundabout at the end of the street, and was now coming back towards me on the other side of the road. The temptation to just skip across the central reservation and rejoin the field was great, but no, fool that I am, I did it the right way.
By the time I’d finally caught up with the motorbike, I was puffing and blowing and glowing like the Darjeeling toy train. It didn’t do the leg much good either, and as we reached the Rambla, it was starting its familiar throb. At the start of the long ascent I’d managed to put some distance between me and the very back markers, but by the time I’d struggled to the top of the hill, I could see the sweeper bike just a hundred metres or so behind me. Again, I made up some ground on the downhill half of the Rambla, but I could sense the way this was going. It was now getting very hot by our standards, and my general lack of fitness was adding to the struggle.
Now for the long drag along the seafront. I seemed to get a second wind from somewhere — perhaps the gel had kicked in. But it didn’t last. Eventually we reach a roundabout and head off to the left. The leg was causing me real trouble by now, and my only hope was to stop and stretch. This helped, but I knew it was a temporary fix. Within a few hundred metres it was hurting again. Another stop and stretch, then back to the race. This time the sweeper bike had actually gone past me, so again I had to waste energy catching it up. I keep chugging along for about a mile, just ahead of a young couple who’d started right at the back, and seemed determined to finish last. It was here I realised there was something pointless about struggling on. I wasn’t doing the calf any good, but more important, I knew I’d have to keep stopping again to stretch it to have any chance of finishing, and I couldn’t see how I could do that with the sweeper bike literally a few feet behind me, revving aggressively. Would it stop and wait for me? Or would I keep having to catch up with it?
Instead, I gave the couple behind me a wave and pulled up. This time I had a really thorough stretch, including some more deep calf raises on the kerb. Painful, but made the leg feel much better. Too late to consider haring after the bike for a third time however, especially as I could see myself having to go through this several more times before the finish line. Instead, I crossed the road and slipped between two shops to find the cool, refreshing breeze of the seafront. I sat on a bench for a minute or two, beneath the quivering palm trees, staring out over the blue Mediterranean. It was the first anniversary of my mother’s death, and for the first time today, I gave her memory some of the attention it deserved.
Maybe the contemplation gave me some extra resolve (or was it just the grateful knowledge that I was now much closer to the finish line than I had been?), but those final two miles back to the stadium were relatively comfortable. The extended stretch and rest had helped, and I needed only one more brief walk break. Apart from that I was able to jog back without too much discomfort. Once inside the stadium I joined the long queue to pick up my teeshirt, before heading back to the minibus, where I found the other four Brits. Before our reunion, I checked my watch. I’d managed 9.6 miles in all. Part of me wanted to be disappointed by the failure to finish, but another, perhaps more rational part, was making a robust case for the defence. I’d already declared the race to be just a training run. Up until the moment I set off, I wasn’t sure I would even start the race, never mind finish. And anyway, if I’d managed a 9.6 mile training run back home while putting up with this left leg pain, would I not have been content? Damn right I would.
Something we discussed and agreed later was that this race has a much faster field than you’d typically get in the UK and US, where stragglers take 3 hours or more to finish. If it had been the case here, with the growling sweeper bike way back behind me, I think I could have pressed on at my own pace, taking breaks when needed, and probably trooping in at somewhere round 2½ hours. But so be it.
All that said, should I have claimed my teeshirt and commemorative punnet of tomatoes without completing the 13 miles?
I can see this being the theme of a future Moral Maze on Radio 4, with the sharpened fangs of Michaels Buerk and Portillo, and Melanie Phillips and Claire Fox, ripping chunks from my pride. As a Philosophy graduate with a taste for Ethics courses, I’m not convinced that I behaved correctly, though the thought of posing for the post-race photos without the teeshirt was too much to bear. So there.
Unlike me, my companions had enjoyed exceptionally good races. Ash had done particularly well, with a 1:40 PB. A truly excellent performance in difficult conditions. Magnanimously, he was keen to credit Julie with his success. She’d pushed him hard on a hot, uncomfortable day for running, and deserves praise, but he still had to do the running. Julie came in at 1:37, with Simon on 1:33. Tracey, who had earlier said she’s be happy with 2 hours, managed an excellent 1:50. Like me, Antonio has had better Almerias, but he stuck at the task, finishing in 2:17.
Back at the hotel, showered and shirted, the second major physical undertaking of the day was just beginning. This was one marathon I was confident of winning: 12 hours of post-race eating and drinking.
At 2:30, we met Antonio at the base of the Rambla for another annual ritual: the group photo. This rambling ceremony requires all cameras to get their fill before we can move on. It’s usually a grey, blustery occasion but this year it was hot and sunny, so no one minded much. The squintfest over, we made our way up the hill, past the now-renamed Molly Malone’s, past the new John Lennon sculpture, and into the warren of quiet lanes off to the left. Past the cathedral with its plangent, Sunday afternoon bell tolling. Mournfully Mediterranean. My legs had stiffened up by now, and the walk had set off the discomfort once again. Stumbling off a kerb no more than an inch or two high gave me a stab of pain that had me squawking like a prepubescent girl. Embarrassing.
This year’s restaurant was a hit. We opted for the all-inclusive tariff which brought forth a procession of delicious mini-digestifs before the veal and the platters of chocolate. The 40 euros a head included limitless alcohol, though the anxious-looking proprietor had to improvise a little here, announcing that once we’d taken delivery of the dessert, the toothsome local vino would have to stop flowing. But a good time was had by all I think, including Santi and Manolo, personable teaching colleagues of Antonio. Manolo was a bit quiet at first, but a couple of drinks and a discussion comparing Manchester United with Barcelona soon saw his shyness evaporate.
The rest of the day proceeded in traditional fashion, with a few Guinness-sodden hours in the tarted-up Molly Malone’s, and finishing in a bar just down the street from the hotel. The company dwindled as we went on. Only the Brits made it to Molly’s, and only Ash, Julie and I ‘went on somewhere’ to the local bar. Julie threw in her hand at about 2 a.m., leaving only two of us standing. If you can call it standing. We don’t know what time we got back, but it was rumoured to be somewhere round 4 a.m.
The evidence may not seem to support it, but talking about this episode next day, I agreed with Ash that glugging Sol lager for hours in a noisy bar just doesn’t do it for me these days. I’m not sure it ever floated my boat. But what do we do instead? Visit BurgerKing like Tracey and Simon? Hmm. Maybe I’ll stick with the Sol. The trouble is, a January Sunday in Almeria is never going to offer too much. Despite the soul-searching, I daresay that next year we will fall down the same man-trap.
I’d already decided that Monday would be a day of rest, so perhaps I didn’t mind so much, but Ash had his usual agenda of lunch at the beach, and the late-afternoon mountain run, and appeared to be paying a heavy price for our late night. By contrast, I slept in until midday, then relaxed in my room, working, for a couple of hours, until it was time to rendezvous with Antonio and the others downstairs. My leg felt fine, but I wasn’t going to do the mountain plod. That would do it no good. Instead, I saw them off, and spent several pensive hours in the sunlit lobby, surfing the net and wondering if I would ever be the sort of runner I would like to be. It was a deliciously melancholy spell, and I snapped out of it only after eating a club sandwich and knocking back an equally ham-fisted Bloody Mary. Presentation less than perfect, but the ingredients did the trick.
The others eventually reappeared, glowing with satisfaction at having scaled another running mountain. Half an hour later, we were assembled again, this time for the usual Monday night visit to the Bullfighter’s Bar, or the Quinto Toro, for our raciones and vino. Alas, no one else was interested in making a serious dent in the bar’s reserves of Rioja, and so Almeria 2010 was to end on a strangely sober note. This was no great loss. We had a horribly early start the next morning, having to leave the hotel at 6 a.m. for the long drive back to Malaga along the coast road. It was uncomfortable enough as it was, without the snarling octopus of a hangover to contend with.
As alluded to earlier,I spent some of the journey discussing with Ash how we might change things for next year. The annual trip has followed a similar pattern for the 6 years we’ve been coming, but that’s no reason to not consider improvements. Just the opposite. Perhaps it’s a good reason to think this way. Our hand has been forced by the new flight schedules. The long road journey from Murcia or Malaga is an unnecessary burden, and we’ll consider any options that allow us to use the local airport once again. We also think a change of hotel, to somewhere more central, might help fling an extra fistful of seasoning into the cauldron. Ash is even talking of extending his trip to allow him an extra helping of mountain running later in the week. He is a truly hopeless case.
Almeria 2010 was a good one. Just 5 Brits this time, but a nice mixture of personalities. I thank you all for the good-natured company. The abiding memory will be the running achievements of the other 4 (though didn’t Almeria used to be a plodder’s convention?). Next year, I need to be fitter, and do better. I can’t blame myself for the calf problem, but it might have been more tolerable if I’d managed to stick to my weight targets. How many more chances will I get? How many more warnings do I give myself?
Ah well.
The Almeria weekend always starts with a painful wake-up call, and it’s probably fitting that it should end with one too.
