RunningCommentary

XX Carrera San Silvestre El Ejido 29th Dec 2007

On Saturday 29th December I went to El Ejido San Silvestre race. This is the seventh consecutive year I go. However, this year it is one kilometre shorter since it is ten kilometre long. It is still five laps but each one is 200 metre shorter so that it can be included in the Spanish federation calendar as an officially approved 10 km race.

I went with Felipe, another teacher of English and Isabel who owns a company related with sea sports in Almería such as windsurfing, canoeing, etc. It is called Eolo. We went in Felipe´s car and went to the town hall to collect our race numbers, chips and a goodie bag with a vest, a balaclava and a cord to hold a mobile phone. As every year there is a crib at the town hall. This year the race entry wasn´t free. It cost five euros. Isabel had a problem with her internet entry but she was allowed to race without a race number and after the race she was given a goodie bag.

At the race I talked to some runners I know. We usually meet in races or while we are training in Almería such as Diego, Jorge, Juan Jesús, etc.

At the start we saw that there were famous Spanish runners such as Antonio Jiménez Pentinel, Reyes Estévez, Zulema and Iris Fuentes Pila Ortiz. Óscar Pereiro, the cyclist who won the 2006 tour de France after Floyd Landis´ disqualification also took part invited by the organisation.

It was a wonderful sunny afternoon. The temperature was around 16º degrees Celsius. After finding a position at the back of the race, we started at 5 o´clock. It starts a little uphill, then downhill to go to the start line uphill again. Isabel left us soon and I kept Felipe´s pace for a lap but afterwards I couldn´t follow him. I did the first 2 km lap in around 11 minutes. There were a lot of people cheering along the Boulevard where the race takes place. In the fist lap I heard “Antonio”.  It came from a girl, Alicia, I met in 2002 when I first took part in this race. We did the race together then and the next year but afterwards she got an injury and she has been a spectator all these years. She used to play handball.

I felt all right all the laps although I was the fourth or fifth behind. One advantage of theis race is that you see the people many times going up or down the avenue. However, in the last lap I managed to overtake three runners which is something good for me since I usually start faster than I should and the last kilometres are very hard. I did the 10 km in 58 minutes while Isabel and Felipe finished a few minutes earlier.

After giving back our chips, we came back to Almería thinking that we would like to do El Ejido half marathon on 16^th March, which will be its first edition.

Best wishes for the next year which is so close.

III Subida a los Baños de Sierra Alhamilla ( 2nd part )

I´ll attach some more pics I couldn´t before. Download copia_de_dsc07579.JPG Download copia_de_dsc07580.JPG Download copia_de_dsc07585.JPG

III Subida a los Baños de Sierra Alhamilla

On Sunday 23rd December I arrived ar Pechina, a small town just 12 km from Almeria. It was time to go up the road to Baños de Sierra Alhamilla, 8,3 km away and come back along a dirt track to Pechina doing around 7 km more.

It was a cloudy day although the sun was fighting to shine. When I got to this small town which, in spite of being so near a big town, fortunately still has a village like appearance, I saw some cyclists and runners near Manuel´s mother´s house. You probably already know Manuel, who lives in Barcelona, but he ´s from Pechina.  He has taken part in loads of  races all over the world. Last summer he took part at Limamarathon and went to Machu Pichu and he also took part at a 100 km race in the province of Zaragoza in August. He is the soul of this race which started as a sort of training announced in a Spanish running website and has found help from the local council.

After greeting Manuel, his mother, brother-in-law who was taking part in the bicycle race, other runners I knew such as Corretón, who came with his wife and daughters to cheer or Raúl, who is the sports councellor taking part this year in the race as tin the previous edition. I also metother runners that Manuel introduced me such as Artés, whom I knew from the forum. He lives in Yecla, in the province of Murcia or Currupuy, who lives in La Rioja and brought some bottles from that area. I also greeted Manuel´s mother and his niece, who happens to be a pupil of mine this year.

At 10:30 Manuel gave the signal to start because he couldn´t take part in the race since he had a terrible cold. I started with the last ones going  up the street that led us to the road toward Los Baños. I managed to keep their pace for one mile but I had to slow down and follow my pace which allowed me to take some pictures. It was a bit hard since I went on my own all the course but I felt all right. I managed to get to the top in sixty minutes, four more than the previous year. The last kilometre to the top is the toughest reaching a sort of oasis in the desert with a spring with hot water. There I was given a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate.

Then, I went downhill along a steep dirt track. Whenever I do this course, which I had last done with Sweder last January, I do a different one because the course is not clear and there are several tracks. I had to turn back a little because I missed the right turning but it didn´t matter. Finally, I arrived at the town hall square where Manuel, his brother-in.law Jose and his nephew José María were waiting for me. I was glad to have been able to do this wonderful race once again. Then, after getting changed at Manuel´s house, I went to the secondary school sports pavilion where all the other cyclists and runners were having a drink and some tapas such as “embutidos” cold cuts?, “langostinos” king prawns?, olives, almonds, etc. We joined them and took part in a draw where the winner got a “jamón Serrano”, cured ham. Three cups were given to the first three runners and a T-shirt to everybody.

I think that the atmosphere was fantastic and everybody is looking forward to doing it again next year. Is there a better way to wish each other a merry Christmas. I also wish you a happy Christmas and a wonderful year 2088.

Xmas greetings

Well, I am not sure that my internet works right, at this moment, so, ever if I repeat this message, I would like just to wish any RC member a very happy holy night (including family).

I should help by cooking! Have the best Xmas Eve

Meatloaf

Christmas Massage

The new Mid Life Crisis Man sends greetings to hightly steamed viewers around this globular planetoid object we call home.

Much has happened of late, but largely it is has been boringly inconsequential stuff of little interest to those not directly related to me. Others of you however will be at least gratified to know I continue to run, and am substantially injury-free and enjoying my plods. Not only that, but I have liberated myself of stopwatch and spreadsheet and now run without a watch and no longer record my efforts in the computer. To say it has freed me up would be an understatement. In conjunction with this, my son and a friend have finally persuaded me to don the metphorical lycra and enter the precincts of a gym which has much scary looking equipment to entrap myself in and many heavy blunt objects to flog myself with. Truth to tell, it is all quite addictive, and I even have functioning triceps again... or perhaps I should say, at last.

Currently I am spending a month back in my second home town of Adelaide, and doing much of the festive thing, drinking too much wine and exotic beer, and eating many very splendid things. Oddly enough however, the warm climate seems to bring out the active athlete in me and despite the food and grog I am reducing the flab and getting nicely tanned and decently toned. So all is pretty much hunky dory in the life of MLCM at the mo.

As for races, well there are none on the horizon, and my only goal is to keep on enjoying my running. Given the lack of deadlines and logbooks, this is actually easier than before, because I am not forcing myself to run when I don't want to, and I run where I want and at the pace I want, and if I stop for a breather, I do so without one eye on the watch and a concern for split times and average pace per kilometre etc etc. 

So there's a new lease of life in the old bod, and it's good.

I should give my son some credit for this I think. He probably saw the increasing size of my belly and figured the old running lark wasn't sufficient motivation for me anymore, and so he dragged me to the gym and beat me severely about the head with some enormous dumbbells until i saw sense. Well, in fact what happened was that I was so impressed with his motivation and level of fitness that I decided to give it a go myself. And by mixing up the routines, it is not as boring as I had feared.

But I don't think it's a substitute for hitting the roads at that perfect time of day when everything is glorious and you seemingly have the planet to yourself and you feel that you could run forever. I'm not saying I'm converted to being a morning person yet, but when I do get up for those early morning runs, it astonishes me just how glorious the world can seem at those times. Running is still the thing for me.

So, health and sanity is good. I must try and get back here more often. I've been missing you guys.

Have a safe and happy Christmas everyone, and I'll see you all in the New Year.

MLCM.

Track du jour (Canción del día)

It's a while since we had one of these.

This week's entry is a little-known gem selected especially for Bierzo Baggie.

No Tengo Tiempo
by the Spanish electronica ensemble Azul y Negro.

The track was used by the Spanish television network TVE as the signature music for its coverage of La Vuelta Ciclista de España (Tour of Spain) from 1982 to 1985, including the infamous 1985 Tour. That was the year when Scots rider and legendary climber Robert Millar led the race with only two stages to go.

Millar should have won the Tour that April, by all standards of performance, and according to the established customs of racing etiquette, but his eccentric personal style (sometimes mistaken for arrogance) left him with a fatal lack of friends in the peloton.

Millar was far too good to care about such details - his combative approach generally depended simply on putting pedal to the metal on the steepest hill he could find and leaving his opponents panting far behind in his wake.

But on the penultimate stage down from the mountains of Segovia that year, Millar's luck ran out. First a puncture, and then a delay at a level crossing (some say the railwaymen conspired against him) left him dangerously isolated and far off the back of the field.

The Spanish teams attacked (some would say unsportingly, but fantastically effectively) and Millar lost over seven minutes, enough to give the yellow jersey to Pedro Delgado, who won the race after the customary uneventful cruise into Madrid the following day.

Delgado went on to win the Tour de France, achieving national superstar status some years before Miguel Indurain, but found his reputation tarnished by a positive drugs test in the fading light of his career.

Applying the Marion Jones principle, that now makes Robert Miller Vuelta champion for 1985. According to me, at least.

Millar, meanwhile went on to win a couple more famous stages in the Tour de France, earning the King of the Mountains title several times, but, unlike Delgado, he never won a major tour. He now lives in obscurity on the Scottish island of Islay.

Meanwhile, back to the music. It's post-punk electronica at its best and worst. Think Kraftwerk, mixed with Yazoo, and sung in Spanish. Que aproveche.

Apocalypto: The Mince Pie 10

Funny that this race should feature the word 'mince' in the title. Around four miles in a portion of the three hundred starters were offering a fair impression of Larry Grayson teetering off to measure an inside leg as they negotiated slimy, treacherous terrain. Our Spartan forebears would've been less than impressed.

A new life

Well, I thank Andy for inviting me to this blog. I had some problems to log in but Andy has managed to get me in.

I have some experience in posting a comment in other people´s posts but this is the first one I´m sending in this blog although I started some threads in the running commentary forum.

I´d like to know how to attach photos in this blog. Is it in the "manage" button?

I wish you all best of luck in your running aims and I´d love to meet you at Almería half on the last weekend of January.

Saludos desde Almería

Antonio

All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey. (Andy)

It’s a while since I thumped the marathon tub. Let’s do it now.

Taking the baton from the desperate lunge of the previous entry, I did manage to see the doc — eventually. He rang in sick first time round — a self-referential conundrum of the type I enjoy — but I persisted, despite the dial on the knee throbostat clicking back a few notches by the time I got there. He prodded the unco-operative joint, and peered at it like it was an exotic marsupial twitching in a cage.