I definitely knew I had managed to sleep when I was woken up by the aid station crew in Santa Lucia. The other runner was gone from the bunkroom, and I hadn’t noticed him getting up and leaving (which was good!). I made a few changes here. I changed shorts, socks and shoes. I also, of course, did my usual of restocking my bottles with my usual collection of liquids (Strawberry milk in one, fruit juice in another, still lemonade as reserve), and collected my watch from charging. I still hadn’t eaten any of my race food, so no need for refilling there.
Unfortunately, one other runner who was here was the French runner I had been running with coming out of La Aldea. He had pulled out of the race at Mogan, and was now helping the race organisation. For the second year in a row, the heat caused him to have to retire.
The medics had noticed my scraped and battered legs, and I was missing some skin on my fingers from using the poles. They spent a few minutes patching those up. A bit of relief from the occasional jolt of pain from the cuts would be good if it worked. Surprisingly there was still one other runner here, and I left before he did. He must have taken a very long stop here (It was Marco Gubert, a very good Italian runner).
It had taken way longer to get to this life base than what I would have guessed when looking at the course before the race. The trails were way trickier and more technical than I would have guessed, which resulted in some comically slow speeds. But it seemed that to be moving at all and still in the race was very good going at this point.
The road out from the Life Base was the same exit as last year, but the common route only lasted about a hundred meters before taking a trail off to the left. This was a good trail thankfully, and even though it was climbing it was definitely runnable in my rested state at night. Within 5 or 10 minutes Marco caught up with me, and we exchanged greetings as he overtook and pushed on.
I happily kept to my own slower pace as he slowly disappeared into the distance. Even though it was nighttime and much cooler, it was still warm enough that I hadn’t put on any extra clothes from my minimal daytime set (just removing the hat, so actually fewer clothes), even when leaving the Life Base when I wasn’t yet warmed up from moving along the course.
The trails for the next few kilometres undulated along up and down, traversing along more rolling hillsides. I could see the lights from the coastal towns and was using them to gauge roughly where I was on the island. I actually recognise the shapes of the towns from my cycling around the Island. I knew I was past Maspolmas (which roughly lined up with Fataga / Santa Lucia), and would be a long way into this leg once I could get past the airport. On my other side, there was almost no sign of any lights, apart from the stars.
The rolling nature of the hills along here made a lot of this section quite runnable. There were one or two steep climbs and descents, and the trails along here were interestingly technical at times. The hours were rolling by, but the fact that the trails were good to run on, and in sections thoroughly enjoyable, meant that the time passed relatively easily.
On the steepest of these climbs, I saw a headtorch below and was quite quickly caught and passed by a very rapid runner. His number wasn’t an obvious race number though, so I was wondering was he actually in the race (He was, and the reason he was so fast was because he was one half of a relay team, a new innovation in this year’s race).
I knew there was a massive ravine (Guayadeque Ravine) ahead which the route would drop into, and climb out the other side. Last year’s route had us climb out of the ravine further up, and it was big and steep. The contours on the map made it look similarly challenging ahead. Sure enough, the nice long runnable downhill gently sloped trail soon took a sharp left turn into an extremely steep descending zig-zag track. Thankfully this was a well-maintained trail, so even though the sheer steepness meant it took a while to descend, and huge care was needed, it wasn’t silly dangerous. It looked pretty amazing at night, with the lights of a few houses and the road up the ravine visible below. I could only imagine it must be an awesome view in the daytime.
It took a little bit to adjust rhythm after crossing the road and starting the climb back out on the other side. Luckily this was more traversing than straight up so wasn’t as super-steep as the descent. However it was back to rarely used bushwhack trail again, which meant that it was still a slow enough climb out.
After about half an hour or so the slope eased back and the trail became more open. I was able to get back to jogging again as it became close to flat. Now I could see houses high above, and a village directly ahead. Dropping in and out of a few small river ravines ensured the approach to the village took about twice as long as I visually expected. I recognised the road the village was on as one I had used to cycle down from the top of the Island a few times, which mentally marked progress up the island in my head.
Running out of the village was a great trail, and pretty flat, but after another kilometre, it was back into deciding into another dry river ravine again and climbing out the other side. The trail then joined an access dirt track road for a kilometre or two, making for more good running. I could now see that I was roughly in line with the Airport too, so was progressing northwards, even if in a slow zig-zaggy fashion!
Physically things were going well. The temperatures were nice, and I was trying to make good use of the lack of heat to make as much progress as possible. The good sleep at Santa Lucia meant that I had no “bewitching hour” mental tiredness either.
A turn inland off the fire road led to 5 or 10 minutes of very steep climbing straight up a hill, and then it was back to a good running trail moderately climbing. After two or three kilometres this led to the edge of another big dry river ravine. I could see a headtorch moving away on the other side of the ravine. This could mean I was catching the runner ahead. Or it could mean that this ravine would take a while to work around to get to the other side. I wanted it to be the former. I was anticipating that it was more likely to be the latter.
The trail turned and ran upwards along the top edge of the ravine, climbing steadily for at least another kilometre, starting to edge down and descend towards the floor of the ravine. And of course, the trail quality started to get a lot worse as it got deeper into the raving, with a lot of encroaching vegetation. At times a machete would have been useful to hack a route through along what I could find of the trail. The climb back out wasn’t too steep, but it was still quite overgrown, so the speed was very low.
And then it got even more challenging! The next kilometre or two had little or no trace of the trail and required a lot of using the GPS for micro-nav to try to stay on course. The vegetation was still pretty bad, and made the nav even more difficult, as well as ensuring an abysmally slow pace. It felt like it took an hour to get through this section, and that this whole course was running ridiculously slowly. I was projecting forward when I was likely to finish based on how long it had taken to reach the first two life bases and was looking like I’d only just make it by Sunday morning, not that far off the race cut-off. Jaysus!
The trail reached the end of an access road at a house, and I thought there would be a little relief following the road out. But it wasn’t to be, as the route just crossed the road and then went back to rarely used track. Thankfully the trail quality wasn’t quite as bad as the previous section. It then started heading downhill and got a lot better quality. I could see a small village out to my left on the other side of a ravine.
The trail continued downwards, then joined a dirt track road which zig-zagged its way into and back out of the ravine again, this time dumping out onto a proper tarmac road heading up towards the village. I was able to jog slowly up towards the village. On reaching the edge of the village the route veered out left away from the road onto another track that was initially hard to find. The trail wasn’t so bad after that, compared to what had come before.
After another kilometre or two, it turned and started heading downhill along the top of a ridgeline. This was back to being good running terrain. The “problem” was it felt like I was losing all my hard-earned height and it looked like I was heading for the sea. It felt like the next aid station was getting further away when I was hoping I could get to it before dawn. The running was so nice in this section that I let my mind drift a bit. As a result, I stayed on the good track which started heading steeply downhill off the left side of the ridge. A quick check on my watch showed no trace of the route track… uh oh.
A further check showed the route continued along the top of the ridgeline, so I reversed back uphill for a few minutes and headed out along the ridgeline. There wasn’t much of a sign of a path/track here. Within a minute I looked at my watch again and noticed I had managed to pass the track turning off to the right of the ridge. I zoomed my watch map to show near maximum zoom to try to find the point where the track diverged. Even standing right on it, it was not easy to detect.
The next couple of hundred meters were spent trying to find this barely existing path to try to navigate safely off this steep-sided ridge. Mistakes here could lead over the side of a cliff quite easily. This was back to being extremely slow going, even though it was descending. And since it was going down into another ravine the vegetation was becoming very dense again. At the riverbed of the ravine, it took another few minutes of back and forth to find the track out along parallel to the riverbed.
By now it was starting to dawn, and I knew I was nowhere near any aid station. In fact, it was still feeling like I was heading down off the mountains towards the sea. This could take forever with the slow progress of these crazily tricky trails. Lots more careful micro navigation was required for the next kilometre or so to get through some old abandoned small field systems beside the riverbed, before reaching an old abandoned farmhouse. I stopped here to refill my now empty water bottles from my reserve supply and put away my headtorch. I got my hat out and put it on in preparation for the return of the sun.
Thankfully the trail was easy to navigate from this point as it followed the centre of the ravine, and the trail quality improved enough to make it runnable again. However, it still felt frustratingly like I was running towards the sea away from the aid station. The trail popped out onto another tarmac road. I was hoping this would be the end of the descending. But after following the road for a hundred meters or so the route took another side road off and down into the ravine again.
This is where I was beginning to feel like “throwing the toys out of the pram”. When would this descending towards the sea ever stop! So I sat down on a rock and got the paper maps out of my backpack to try and look at the bigger picture to see where I was and what was going on with the route. After about 10 minutes I still hadn’t fully worked it out, but decided to stop wasting precious still-cool time and press on. I had it in my head that if I kept heading downhill I could retire and get a bus from one of the big towns when I was low enough.
Thankfully after spending another 10 minutes heading down the ravine at a relatively gentle slope, the route switched on to a track climbing back out of the ravine. But now with the daylight, I was having to be a bit more measured with my climbing effort. Overheating was still the biggest potential race-ending danger.
The route ended up climbing the next ridgeline along. I was surprised not to re-cross the road (it wasn’t the main road I had been thinking it could be). The trial then joined onto a small tarmac road, and I was able to run this section for a while, before a beep from my watch let me know that I had run past a turn I should have taken. On this ridge I could see a big ravine down to my right, with a few villages further up the hill on the other side.
The turn took a nice pleasant trail down into the ravine, where it joined a dirt track road running under the cliffs along the right side of the ravine. Now the sun was up high enough that there wasn’t enough shadow being cast to save me from the heat of the direct sunlight. But at least I was heading inland now, and definitely heading in the general direction of the next aid station. I had no idea how far away it was though.
A few early morning joggers past me heading in the opposite direction down the ravine. They must have thought my effort at running was pathetic. I’d guess it was barely over walking pace at this point. But at least there was no bushwhacking, the gradient was gentle enough to make an effort to run, and the sun wasn’t superheating everything just yet.
After running for what seemed around an hour up the ravine I came across a sign indicating that the next aid station was up to my left. For once a nice surprise! I had been mentally preparing for it to be much higher up the hill. I was very happy to take the short in-and-out path up into the village above the ravine and sit down on a chair at the aid station.
This was another small aid station with just liquids and small snacks. I took my shoes and socks off to let my feet air for a while. They had taken quite a pounding from all the rocky trails and I could really feel a lot of tenderness and sore points. Again I did my usual routine of taking my time drinking as much as I could manage, whilst refilling my supplies. I ate another piece of Banana and some slices of watermelon.
I would have been happy to sit there all day, but I knew I needed to press on. After about twenty minutes or so I put myself back together again, thanked the aid station crew and headed back down into the ravine to continue onwards. I knew that the town of San Mateo was the next major point on the route and that it wasn’t an enormous distance away. I did know that it was one of the higher towns on the island though, and that it would probably be a big climb to get there. But the last thing I knew was that there were quite a few shops that would be open when I got there, so I could burn through my liquids and refresh and resupply there.
As it turned out there was only another kilometre or two left running up the ravine, which by now was narrow enough to be nicely sheltered from the sun. The trail heading right and up out of the ravine was a very solid rocky trail, but quite steep, so it was a controlled march up and out. It was starting to feel like being back in the hills again (In reality I had never left them).
The steep trail topped out and joined a road through what seemed like the outskirts of a village. It started flat enough for a fast walk, but soon enough it started getting more steep. The landscape here was a bit more green than it had been on the previous day. It looked less like a parched desert. After a few more hundred meters of steep road it was back onto trail again. For a change, this was a good trail. The route did an arc around a riverbed valley, which had quite a bit of shade, before reaching the far side in the direct sunlight and climbing steeply.
It was now definitely in the long peak heat period of the day, and I could really feel its effects. I was being very sure not to push too hard, whilst at the same time trying to make consistent forward progress. But this was a big test. It was clearly going to be a steep trail climb exposed to the full power of the sun all the way to the top of the ridgeline I knew was above me. Even taking a controlled steady pace I could feel myself generating a ton of sweat. So much so that I had to wipe the sweat away from my eyes, which had started stinging from the saltiness. I was of course making sure to sip plenty of water from my bottles.
The trail zig-zagged its way up and popped out onto a road. After about 5 meters on the road I came to a junction with a big sign indicating that this was Vega de San Mateo. Sure enough once I stepped up to the top of the ridge I could see the town below. Phew. That horrendous climb was done, and it was going to be a descent down to somewhere with loads of open shops!
After turning onto a minor road for one or two hundred meters it was then a nice rapidly descending trail which took me to the highest houses on the outskirts of town. It took another 10 minutes of running down the roads through the outskirts before getting to the town centre itself. I had been here on the Monday before the race, as this is where I had to change buses to get to Tejeda. I also knew from last year’s race that the was a big Spar shop a little further down on the town’s main square.
I spent about 10 minutes in the air-conditioned supermarket picking up a large bottle of cold Fanta, as well as a a large bottle of still lemonade, some water, and an ice cream. I found a shaded spot outside on the opposite side of the road and sat down to eat the ice cream and drink as much of the Fanta as I could manage. This was my middle-of-the-day heat break. I was probably stopped for a minimum of 20 minutes, but given the heat that was probably a very productive thing to do.
Restarts are hard! It took me a few hundred meters before I could get going again into a slow shuffling run, heading out of San Mateo. I had done this next 2 kilometres or so in reverse last year. My run came to a stop with an initial steep climb up to the trails beyond the town. But it turned into mostly good downhill running after that on a mix of quiet back roads, trails, and then a few hundred meters of descending a relatively busy road. A dirt road descent took the route down off the road into the centre of a valley. This was another dist track. I had come in from the left last year, but this year’s route went right. Back to all new experiences.
Being in the centre of a wind-sheltered valley this could have been an extremely hot section. But it was also a (dried) riverbed, so there was a lot of vegetation around, which provided quite a bit of sun shelter. The next two or three kilometres were spent running down the centre of the valley. It was a very gentle descent, so ideal for running speed. At first, it was a dirt road, so I was able to make relatively good speed. But quite often it would turn into technical rocky sections right over the dried riverbed, with encroaching vegetation requiring lots of ducking and diving, slowing things right down. Overall though, it felt like it was much better progress than I had been making during the night on this stage.
I knew it would eventually be a left turn out of the valley to cross the ridgeline looming above. It wasn’t actually that high, but every climb was going to hurt given the effort it had taken to get to this point! When it eventually came the climbout started as a fun but slow track through thick tall reeds, before breaking out into the direct sunlight on access roads heading steeply uphill.
At the top, the route crossed straight over a bigger road and onto more access roads on the other side. What followed was a few kilometres of relatively small climbs and descents, working through a series of small ridges and valleys. It was also a bit of a mix of roads and trails. The one common feature was the heat of the sun, which ensured that everything was taken at a very carefully controlled pace.
One of the steeper climbs ended up popping me out into a very small village and crossing the road through the middle of the village. On passing the houses on the other side, and beginning the descent into the next valley the view opened right up. It was a much bigger valley, with a large town a kilometre or two ahead. Could that be Teror? Surely it must be Teror! Where else could it be. The sun was still quite high in the sky, and it was a long way from dusk. If that really was Teror then the second half of this stage from the water station would have gone relatively quickly.
As I was running down the access roads into the valley I was looking at the town looking for Teror’s famous church, and managed to pick it out. Yay! I was on my way to completing this stage. The road became a very steep descent, and I spotted trail signs for Teror. However, being the 360 challenge, the route veered away from following what was probably the most direct route indicated by the signs and instead stopped descending and began traversing across the side of the valley.
The views were pretty epic here, but after another kilometre or so the route kicked up into a steep climb that took a path right up to the top of the ridgeline. It was looking like I would be running alongside Teror rather than into Teror. And that is exactly what happened for the next kilometre or two. It was nice running trails gradually descending down the ridgeline, with great views of Terror and the valley/baranco below the ridgeline. Sometimes the trail got a little steeper and more technical, but it was a well-used trail so it was always runnable.
Unfortunately, the route seemed to be heading well beyond the centre of Terror and towards the far outskirts of the town. I knew from last year that the Baranco was quite a significant feature, so there was likely to be a bridge crossing that the trail would lead to. Eventually, the trial did do a few steeper zig-zag descents before descending down onto a road, where there was indeed a narrow road bridge over the Barranco which was where the route went.
It was a long road gentle road climb from here heading for the town centre through the outskirts. There was a little diversion to take in a long flight of stone steps, which I tried to tackle as rhythmically as possible, before crossing another bridge over another Baranco, which I remembered from last year. The road then kicked into a steep climb up to the central feature of the town, the iconic church. Last year’s aid station was nearby, and I could see it was undergoing renovation, so it would be a new building this year.
It was another couple of hundred meters of uphill road climbing through the other side of the town before my watch finally started indicating that the stage was coming to an end. I was happy that even though the sun was now descending, there was still plenty of daylight left. I had been planning to take another sleep here, and my ideal scenario would be to sleep in the heat of the day to get maximum running time in the cooler night. It was looking like this would work out reasonably well.
I was cheered into the aid station by a collection of race crew and spectators. As ever, the Life Base crew were super helpful. I was back into my usual routine. Take as much liquid on board as possible, put my watch on recharge, and then get some sleep. I was going to take a relatively luxurious 2 hours here. The next leg had no intermediate water stop, so there would be no straightforward place to grab a sleep if I got too tired. I definitely wanted to avoid any sleep deprivation. They had some nice chilled 7 up here, so I was able to get quite a bit of that down. It was nicely refreshing too.
Whilst being left towards the sleeping area I met Marco coming the other way and we cheered each other on. He looked in good form. I was surprised to see that there were 2 or 3 other runners in the sleeping area when I got there. One looked like he was getting ready to leave, and another was awake. I quietly settled into the furthest section of the sleeping area (there were mats on the ground, and blankets… more than good enough this far into a race!). I settled down, tried to breathe slowly and deeply in the hope of getting off to sleep, and not just ending up lying there thinking that I really need to sleep!
Eoin Keith 