I completed this race in about 7 hours ( I misclicked my stopwatch at the start and GPS tracking was done upto half an hour before finishing untill my phone was out of battery so I will have to wait for the official race results to know a more exact time ). Still I am very happy with that since it was by far the toughest mountain marathon I have done. Ofcourse this is my opinion and other runners may have different thoughts. In general I think I can say this is the most regular race I have run so far. I still went out way too fast, and I passed the first half marathon in 2h25m, so the second in 4h35m. But there was a huge difference in runnability between the first and second half and at least I ran just about every runnable part of the track and did not have mayor breakdowns in energy nor did I cramp up, but more about that at the end, let's go back to the preparations and the start of the race.
The race started in the middle of the small town Àger, just behind the church, at 8 o'clock in the morning. It was the first time this race was organized and expectations were high. After getting up early and bringing my luggage to the car I left parked just outside the camping of the village and having some bananas for breakfast I went back up to the town center where some 130 marathon- and 55 ultra-runners waited for the 8 count of the church bells to chime us into motion. The first kilometer we winded through the narrow streets of the village, which was fun, though a bit crowded. Once outside the village the road gave us enough space to spread out and find a good pace. The first 9 kilometers were rather flat and muddy and like always I probably went too fast here, but my "10k" legs seem to have a hard time avoid that.
After drinking water and eating water melon, and having my first ratio of my Chia and natural sirup brew the first uphill starts.
The way up is a very narrow trail through the misty morning, but nevertheless enjoyable.
At some point we get out of the mist and the views were absolutely spectacular. But no time to stop and enjoy really, luckily there were more views up ahead.
After the first climb we went back down into the mist. The first part of the downhill was very slippery, but I kept my balance and soon we were on a more runnable part with a group of some 10 runners crashing down and heading for "Congost de Mont-Rebei".
The congost is also spectacular and here I let the group go to make fotos and some video of the surroundings.
At the end of the congost we cross a hanging bridge that really moves quite a lot when you cross it. At the other end the second control was set up, but I forgot to take a picture there. We are almost half way here and with 2 hours and 15 minutes or so I am still going too fast.
The next part is beautiful, but hard. Going through a very humid forest with a narrow stony trail, up and down and up and down. I slow down here and take it easy on the downhills.
Getting to Alsamora, around 30k into the race, to quite a while, but all in all I am feeling quite well.
Alsamora
The photographer photographed
At the 3rd control in the middle of the village I took some more time to refill water, eat fruit and nuts and drink some Coca Cola, the only "none natural" substance I would take in the event. So far my stomach was feeling very much ok.
After Alsamora we ran over a flat stony path and then we started the last long uphill. Here I went along climbing with Joan Llopart and we have a good chat will walking up.
At the top I took a short break at control 4 and then went downhill into the clouds back to Àger. At this point the ultra-runners took a left eventhough most of the runners were on the marathon course when I passed.
At some point here I, and a few other runners, missed a right turn and did about 2 extra kilometers before deciding to turn back and find the trail markers, since it was too long since we had seen the last ones. So close to the end it does not really bother me, and after losing 20 minutes we were back on the right trail and soon could see Àger in the valley below. The last downhill is really steep and I think that somehow I did not drink enough water for quite a while since here I was feeling very sluggish. Still, I kept running and finally arrived at the finish on the campsite after 7 hours 1 minute and 36 seconds, happy to have finished and to have picked this race because of its scenery!!!
Many thanks to all the volunteers and the organization!!!
After finishing I was happy to have parked the car here and have all my things nearby. I first charged my mobile phone and called home to inform about my whereabouts and well-being and then drank a lot of water and some really cold really good beer. Then I went for the showers, which were great too and then finished of with eating pasta and a few other things preparing for the trip back to Barcelona.
I will try to edit a video of the really shaky footage I took with my GoPro camera, but that will take a few days.
... a few days later, the video is edited, I will put some comments and links about the steps in Miscellaneous . Video on Youtube or Video on Vimeo . I am not sure which is the best web to see them so I tried both.
... on the Nutrition and Hydration page I explain about the Chia and syrups mixture I experimented with during this race.
No comments:
Post a Comment