Yet again I was woken by the Life Base crew. I had managed to get a lot of sleep in. Looking around there was no one else here in the sleeping area. I hadn’t heard anyone leaving, so must have slept quite well. I’m not a morning person and don’t exactly jump out of bed with enthusiasm at the best of times, so getting up after a sleep in the middle of the race is a bit of a laboured effort, even when I know I need to be as efficient as possible.
The walk back to the main Life Base area via a pit-stop in the toilets for some washing and running repairs (thanks again Salty Britches… their anti-chaffing lotion does wonders for mid-race damage minimisation and repair) ensured that I was soon wide awake. I was back to my more standard aid station efficiency.
It was the usual procedure now. Fill the water bottles with the new supply of strawberry milk and fruit juice, and retrieve my watch from charging. I also changed shoes again. I had packed a pair of Columbia Trans-Alp shoes here, and they were probably just right. A change would be good anyway. I also had a change of socks into a thicker pair, which I was very glad to be able to use. I also swapped my headtorch for a more powerful spare I had in my drop bag. The battery would be enough for 2 nights which would get me to the end of the race. The extra power might be useful if I was feeling sleepy in the middle of the night.
There was a bit of debate with the aid station crew about liquids. Since there wasn’t going to be any mid-stage after stop they weren’t comfortable that I was going to be bringing enough liquids with me. I understood exactly where they were coming from. But I also knew that I generally need less liquids than the majority of people and that I’d have 11 or 12 hours of running before the sun started to heat things up again. In the end, I decided to bring an extra two half-litre bottles of Teror Aqua Con Gas, which the Life Base crew were happy to see.
As all this was going a pair of runners arrived to the enthusiastic cheers of all the supporters, which seemed to include at some of their friends or family. About 5 minutes later Jonathan, one of the two British runners arrived in. He was looking pretty good, given the circumstances, and was obviously going well to still be in the race and be here at this time. In the few minutes we were both here at the same time we had a brief conversation. He was looking very good to finish. No doubt they’d all get some sleep here, especially since it was now nighttime.
Preparations done, it was time to head out the door and take on the longest section of the race between support. It was highly likely I wouldn’t come across any open random shops either, since it was about 7 in the evening now, and useful shops later in the stage more than likely wouldn’t be open until after 9am at best. This all had the potential to be very challenging indeed.
But at the same time, I had a plan for this. The timing of this was excellent. I had to whole night ahead in the relatively cooler night air (It was still warm, just not stressfully so). When I do my normal training runs I can easily go for 6 or 7 hours without needing liquids and without feeling thirsty, once the temperature is below 20 degrees centigrade or so. So I was going to try to run the first few hours without getting into my current race habit of sipping from my water bottles regularly.
Teror was still quite lively as I headed uphill through the last of the outskirts. There seemed to be kid’s football matches on, and there were lots of people heading to or from the grounds, which I was running past. Once clear of the village it was onto a trail which went much more steeply on a fairly direct uphill line, heading for the ridge above Teror. There was a road zig-zagging its way up, but the trail was cutting the zig-zags and taking the steeper more direct line. Steep enough that I was mostly fast marching with my poles.
The trail eventually topped out onto a minor road which then gently climbed to the Apex of the hill. A left turn started the road descent back down off the ridge. I was joined briefly here by one of the Life Base crew doing an evening jog (which was way way faster than my racing shuffle) before he turned around and headed back to Teror. After a few hundred meters it was then onto a trail.
This was a good quality trail, and it was no problem to keep up a steady running pace as it made its way down into the next valley. At night it’s much harder to read the landscape features, but this seemed to be a nice quiet isolated trail through the middle of a ravine, mostly with little to see apart from the ravine itself. It was actually lovely running terrain and I was able to set a nice pace. It was definitely easier going than the previous leg so far!
After what seemed like quite a long descent the trail levelled out and traversed around the ridge on the left side of the ravine. The trail ended at a very minor road. A left turn here started a gentle climb on the road. I fast marched at first but soon turned that into a slow pole-assisted run. The road worked its way into another valley and proceeded to climb gently up through the centre of the valley. I was getting into the rhythm of running up the road at a good slow but consistent pace.
My rhythm was disrupted when my watch alerted me to the fact that I was off-route. Oops. I had to backtrack for about 30 meters where the route took a trail climbing steeply up the right side of the valley. It was back to walking now. Thankfully the trail was good quality, with no encroaching vegetation so I was still making reasonable speed here.
After about a kilometer of trail climbing the trail topped out onto a road. The route took a left turn following the road up the centerline of the ridge. Most of this road was gently sloped enough so that I was able to get back to running again. Every now and again there were a few steeper sections that required a short bit of marching. I could see that the road progressed a long way up the ridge. The views were much more open up on the ridge and the lights of villages ahead were hard to miss!
I was enjoying this leg so far. The fact that I was making good progress all the way was having positive feedback. There were some nice big wooded areas on the right side of the road here. They probably would have been useful for shelter from the sun during the daytime, but were just nicely interesting close-range scenery at night.
After a kilometre or two a sharp right turn took a short section of trail down to a main road. After 20 or 30 meters descending down this road, the route took a minor road branching off the main road at an acute junction. This minor road was heading gently down another ridgeline. About 50 meters down I need to stop for some running repairs on myself. I really noticed the weight of my backpack taking it on and off. All that liquid made the bag noticeably heavier than it had been on other legs. My shoulders could definitely feel the difference.
The road down the ridgeline turned out to be a very long gentle descent. It was a mix of road sections with occasional trail sections and dirt road sections, often through wooded areas. Again progress was satisfyingly good. Any views out to the right were of the lights of villages and the towns along the northern coast of the island. At least once I managed to miss a trail splitting off from the road, and had to backtrack back up for a minute to get onto the correct route.
This descent lasted several kilometres, before a steeper but still unable trail section finished it off and popped me out onto a road. After 100 meters on the road, there was a 5-way junction. I made the mistake of following the main road downhill at first, but quickly realised that was wrong. I needed to zoom in my map to a higher resolution and figured out I should have taken an almost parallel minor road.
This road headed steeply uphill on the top of a ridge. It was definitely back to marching uphill again with the old clacking of my poles as I tried to Nordic walk it as best as I could. After a few minutes, the route branched off the road into a forest trail but became much less steep. Not long afterwards I was able to start mixing in more steady running with intermittent walking up steeper sections.
I could hear the roaring of some late-night enthusiastic car driving on the road in the valley below on my left. It looked like this trail was heading into another long valley. I knew that part of this was running a section we did on last year’s race in the reverse direction, and I suspected that it would be in this valley (in fact it had started at the road junction).
The route entered a forest section. It was now a lovely runnable fairly flat forest trail which was traversing its way up the left side of the valley. The running stopped a few minutes later with a very steep zig-zag climb. But that turned out to be a small speedbump, as the trail continued on from there through the forest. It felt fairly flat, so again it was great running terrain. I was much more sure I was reversing last year’s route now.
I expected the trail to descend down and pop out onto a minor road running up the centre of the valley. After a kilometer or two that’s exactly what happened. The road of course climbed up the center of the valley. But what I remembered as nicely runnable downhill last year was quite a steep climb initially. So it was back to uphill pole-marching.
After a kilometre or two, it became less steep and I was able to get into a running rhythm again. I knew that there would be a right turn up ahead to take a technical trail climbing to the top of the ridgeline on the right side of the valley. But I had remembered the road down last year seeming longer, so again managed to run past the junction, even having seen a trail junction and knowing I should be taking one.
It only took 10 or 20 seconds to correct that. The trail brought the running to a screeching halt. I remembered how steep and technical this trail was descending, with quite a lot of bushwhacking vegetation. So I knew to take my time heading up this trail, and not to push the effort too hard. By now I had started sipping on my water bottles, so was starting to drain my precious liquid stores!
My memory of this trail was surprisingly detailed, and I could recall almost every turn, along with the technical terrain, and where the vegetation needed to be bashed through. As a result, time seemed to go fairly quickly heading up the hill, so even though this was the first really slow-going section of this leg it still felt like I was making solid progress. Overall the leg seemed to be progressing really well, and I felt optimistic about how much of it I would manage to complete during the night.
As I expected, the trial reached the top of the ridge and ended at a minor access road. Still reversing last year’s route it was a gentle uphill along the top of the ridgeline. This again turned steeper in parts, so there was quite a bit of walking on these steeper sections. It was the middle of the night now, so even though I was passing plenty of houses along the road there was no sign of any life.
After a kilometre or two heading up the road, I could see a group of houses ahead and checked the map on my watch. As it happened I checked at exactly the right time, as the route took a forest road which branched right from exactly where I was standing. That ended the climbing. Back into the trees, the forest road was nice and wide, and heading gently downhill, so it was unable at a good pace.
There were a few bends and curves as it started. Coming around one of the bends something ahead reflected back a load of light from my headtorch. It kind of looked like a backpack. But since the runners ahead of me were so far ahead that seemed unlikely. But it turned out it was a backpack, and I could see I was catching up with someone walking ahead of me. I spotted the race number. So it was one of the runners ahead.
I waved hello as I passed him and ran off down the fire road. He must have stopped for some reason here, as I had seen no trace of him, even on the longer sightlines of a road climb. I guessed I would grow out a gap now, since I had managed to close a big time gap to overtake him in the first place.
After another couple of hundred meters of more steady descending the forest road took a sharp zig-zag turn, so I couldn’t but notice that he was about 30 or 40 meters behind me. He was back to running, and probably trying to keep up with me, and use me to drag him along.
There was a right turn of the forest road onto a technical steeply descending trail. I was now in a little more of a racy mode, so I made sure to take this at a good pace, but without pushing too hard. Just because it was nighttime didn’t mean that the consequences of pushing too hard wouldn’t manifest themselves later.
Another one or two hundred meters later there was a trail junction. Checking my watch showed that I wasn’t on the route, even though I knew I had to be. There was a small cliffy wall of rock nearby, and still some tree cover, so the GPS was probably not at 100% accuracy as a result. As I stopped briefly to confirm that I should continue on down the trail my trail-runner caught up with me.
I descended down the rest of this trail to the centre of the valley with him right behind. The climb out the other side started on a relatively narrow trail that was still a runnable climb (especially now that I was a little more motivated) before becoming a grassy dirt road. There were a few turns running up the track, and I could see my tail runner was now a little further behind, but still keeping a good speed.
I continued running up the hill, getting maximum power assist from my poles and keeping the pace to the upper end of comfortable. Definitely a little faster effort than I had been going before the overtake. The fire road joined onto a concert minor road and started heading more steeply uphill. Shortly after that it really kicked into a very steep uphill. As I marched up the hill I could see that my tail runner was right behind me matching my pace, even at my increased effort.
He was definitely using me for pacing since he had to have been going slower before I overtook him. There was no talking from either of us, so I was definitely back into more of a racing mode. It was making the time pass, and having a good effect on speed and motivation.
The steep section eased off and we soon on a much more major road on the outskirts of a village. Tat a junction on the lower edge of the village we were greeted by one of the race staff checking that all was OK and that we were good. I let him know all was good with me and powered on, marching up the hill along the top of a ridge through the centre of the village. I noted that there was a shop here, but of course, there was no sign of any life at this hour of the night. Thankfully I didn’t need any supplies at this point.
The route followed the road up through the village and onwards steadily up the ridgeline. It became less steep beyond the village, and I was eventually able to get running again. By now I knew that my tailrunner would match whatever speed I did, so I had eased back slightly to the kind of pace I had been doing when I was on my own. He was still matching me keeping a consistent steady gap.
As usual, once I was comfortably in the rhythm of steadily running up the road, the route took a branch off to the left onto a dirt road. There were no trees here, so the views were much more open, although it was still hard to read the landscape in the middle of the night. The dirt track was traversing its way around a series of small ridges and dry river valleys. It seemed to be either flat or gently descending. The valley traversing meant that the road was making a lot of s-bends.
After a kilometer or so I needed to stop for a quick pee. I was curious to see how my tail runner would react. After a few seconds, he passed by and ran on. Once I got going again after restarting he was at least 50 meters ahead. After a few more bends and curves I could see that he was growing the gap slowly. That was fine by me! I was happy to cruise away at my pace and see what would happen.
After another kilometre or two, I reckoned I could do with a little energy boost, so for the first time in the race I dug out some of the race snacks I was carrying in my side pockets. I ate a few pieces of dried fruit (mainly apricots) and one or two jelly sweets. It was a nice mental distraction as well, and a new taste was refreshingly different.
About 5 minutes later I came to a 5-way road junction. Checking my watch I continued on the main line of the dirt road past a house as it curved rightwards. But a few seconds later I could see that I wasn’t far right enough, and I should have taken the right-hand turn at the junction. So another 20 or 30 seconds were spent reversing back and heading down the correct route.
This was a more minor dirt track, but still perfectly runnable. There was no sign of my front runner now of course. This road was heading off a minor ridge and started to get more steep. After a minute or two the road ended and the route took a trail down much more steeply off the left side of the road. I noticed a flash of reflected light here before heading down the trail and looked to my right to see my front runner resting there. (I was seeing why he was happy to use me for pacing!)
The technical trail decent only lasted a minute or two, before crossing a dry river bed and following a concrete access road rising steeply up the other side. This was also a V turn, so I could see the headtorch of my tail runner descending the trail as I pole-marched my way up the road. I expected him to catch up to me soon enough and settle in behind me again soon.
After a kilometre of climbing the route came through another small village and crossed over a more major road, then headed off gently downhill on a slightly more technical wide track. It seemed like my tailrunner wasn’t closing the gap.
The track turned sharply right and headed up a small valley. This was the most unusual section of the race. The trail was grassy singletrack. The grass around me was covered in dew, and my shoes were getting damp. There was even a short boggy section with a pond. It almost felt like Ireland. And this was the only time in the race where I actually felt slightly cold, even if for only a minute or two.
The route then reached a (dry) dirt road and soon normality returned. By now it seemed like, if anything, the gap to my trailrunner was slowly growing. The climb was still gentle enough to be runnable, and I kept the rhythm up as the track climbed steadily up to reach a road again. The route crossed over the road and then climbed more steeply up the ridgeline.
Now it was back to marching uphill, and I continued on purposely up the steep climb. After a few minutes, I glanced at my watch and saw that I was off route. Oops. I revered back down the hard-earned steep climb on the big trail to the point where the map indicated I should have turned off. Yet again the good trail had lured me into complacency. The track branching off was barely detectable even standing right on the junction looking at the route. Surprisingly so, there was no sign of my tail runner’s torch closing me down.
This trail was traversing across the side of the hill rather than heading steeply up. However, it was clearly a rarely used trail, as it was almost non-existent with lots of encroaching bushwhacking vegetation that had to be battled through. I made sure to keep an even effort, so my speed dropped back from the steady progress I had been making on this leg for so long.
I had a mental image of the general route and profile of this leg in my memory. I knew the route would head in the general direction of Agaete on the northwest coast, and would have a big drop down to the low point of the leg at a village a few kilometres up from Agaeta. It would then turn and have a huge long climb out most of the way to the Life Base, with the middle section looking like the steep crunch section. At this point, it felt like I was at least in the general vicinity of reaching the northwest side of the Island. It seemed like there was at least the possibility that I might get to the start of the big climb before the heat of the day.
This trail was very slow going though. At least it was never steep, just gently undulating as it traversed across the small ridges and valleys. After 10 or 15 minutes I could see the lights of another a few hundred meters village ahead. But it was slow going to actually get there. The route was a fight pretty much the whole way there, but it was definitely keeping me concentrating and wide awake!
The trail ended at a road bordering the edge of the village. I was pleasantly surprised that the route took the more major road down and away from the village rather than going into it. This was now as good a running surface as you could get, a moderately descending road. So I made good speed as the road snaked its way down the mountain, making big arcing turns.
On some of the turns, I could see the route into the village above me. I thought I could see the headtorch of my tail runner above at one point, but wasn’t sure. This definitely felt like the start of the long descent, and from what I could interpret of the landscape ahead it all did seem to align with my memory of the long descent in the direction of Agaeta.
About a kilometre later it was a shape left turn off the main road onto a dirt track road heading more across the side of the mountain, but still descending. This was still excellent running territory so I was making very good progress. After a few twists and turns the route seemed to have crossed onto a ridge above a huge valley to the left and started descending down the ridgeline above the valley. I could then see a big town below. That must be the bottom of the long descent. This was going very well.
A couple of hundred meters later the dirt road ended at a farmhouse. The route continued onto a trail (it took me two goes to pick exactly the right trail, as there were a few sheep-track-like trails around here. The ground seemed to be like a grassy field here).
A sharp right turn then followed a more broken track definitively into the valley. It then switched back to traversing across for a hundred meters or so. My watch indicated the track would turn 90 degrees right and head straight down the hill. But I overran the trail. This was another unobvious minor trail. I had to zoom my map resolution in even further to find it. The hill in front was very steep indeed, and there would be a high chance it would get quite dangerous if I wandered off the trail.
I was reasonably sure I was on the trail, but it was almost impossible to distinguish the trail. This was technical terrain. Lots of rocks and boulders, and of course plenty of vegetation. I wouldn’t even call it encroaching, since there wasn’t really a path worth talking about to encroach upon. Things were now very stop-start. I was probably spending more time stopped checking the watch and the ground ahead trying to hunt out the trail ahead, and then getting 5 or 6 meters through technical terrain before having to hunt for the trail again.
All the while the ground was getting precipitously steeper. I definitely didn’t want to wander off-route. It would both be dangerous and even more ridiculously slow going. There was an occasional small cairn that indicated that this was considered a trail by someone at some point!
The trail became even more steep as it took me between cliffs steeply down what was probably a dried river gulley. By now the trace of a trail on the ground wasn’t aligning with the route indicated on my watch. I went with the route on the ground. Making my way through a particularly technical and steep section here I ended up sliding down the hill for about 10 meters. I was not in control there, but luckily nothing dangerous happened. But it was a big warning that it would be easy to slide over a cliff here with a mistake at the wrong point.
It became more zig-zaggy for a while, with the trail being slightly easier to find. But it was not any faster really. Thankfully the slope eased back a bit, so it felt less potentially hazardous. There was one longer section of 100 meters or so which traversed across the slope. At the end of that, I stopped to take off my shoes to empty them of all the small stones I had picked up inside them getting down this hill.
After putting my shoes back on I slowly got going again. Looking back up the hill from where I had come I could see the headtorch of my tail-runner descending. I reckon he had definitely gained a lot of time on me on that section. Thankfully the trail was now becoming easier to find on the ground and was lining up with the route being indicated on my watch. It was less steep and less technical than the last kilometre, so I was able to pick up a little more speed, with more steady running and less stopping and starting to find and verify the trail.
After another 5 minutes or so it became a very definite trail. It started to run alongside some walls and fencing. The village was getting closer, so these could well have been boundaries to active agricultural land. There was still plenty of encroaching vegetation and the ground was still far from smooth though.
After a few more hundred meters it did eventually lead out onto an access road heading steeply down the hill and into the village. There was a little zig-zagging about on pathways between houses in the upper part of the village before arriving on a more main road. That was the end of the descending. There was a house here which seemed to have a cafe, as there was a sign for ice cream there. But of course, there was no sign of any life at this time.
It was still very much nighttime and no sign of any light in the sky. I was very happy to make it to the bottom of the last big descent on this leg. Basically what was left now was one huge climb (give or take a little descending here and there), and the more of this I could get done before the heat arrived the better. This leg was looking very good, and running considerably faster than the previous legs.
The route followed the pretty much flat road to the right, crossing the centre of the valley and to the edge of the village on the southwest side of the valley. After a few hundred meters of this easy road running a slight turn right took the route back onto trail and started climbing. This was the start of the last big climb. In my head I had it divided into 3 sections from my memory of the route profile. An initial steady climb, a long very steep middle section, and then a less steep climb towards the Life Base.
The trail started gently enough. It was narrow but well-defined. The really good news was it was a good-quality trail. Hopefully this would continue, and the trail would revert to the new normal for this leg. It was slowly gaining altitude running alongside the walls and fences of some agricultural areas above the town. I could see there was a road climbing the valley more centrally to my left. It was going quite as straight up the hill though. I was presuming the road would also be heading all the way up the climb.
After 10 minutes or so I had climbed above the walled and fenced section of the trail. It now seemed to be more like a forest trail through pines. It was actually a very nice trail. I was making good speed again now, with a good climbing pace. It was well beyond the level of steepness where running would have been possible. Indeed it seemed to be gradually getting steeper with altitude.
The trail did a few big zig-zags, and on one or two of these I was able to see the headtorch of my tail runner below me heading up the trail. He didn’t seem to have closed the gap since I had seen him on the previous descent.
After passing just above the road the trail went more directly uphill while the road took a wider zig-zagging arc around the valley. After another 15 minutes or so of climbing the trail ended up just below the road again. The trail became a lot less steep, and once again became runnable. By now I was down to the last sips of my water bottles.
I was very happy to have gotten this far without having to top up my bottles from my reserves. It was looking very likely that I would easily get to the next life base without running out of liquids. In fact, it was likely that I was carrying a large surplus. In this race, that was the right side of perfection to be on! And there was still no trace of daylight!
I could see lights high above me, and the valley seemed to be curving around to the right. It looked like I was on the approach to the really steep section, and the lights above were at the top of that section of climb. Now seemed like a good time to stop to refill my water bottles.
I was able to refill both bottles from my still lemonade bottle in my backpack, and also consume most of one of my 500ml Teror aqua con gas bottles (as I had no need to keep it as a reserve at this point). With a few other bits of body maintenance, I was stopped for what seemed like 5 minutes, so I was anticipating that my tail runner could appear right behind me on the trail at any point. But he didn’t emerge from the steeper section below while I was stopped.
A few minutes after getting going again the trail popped out onto the road. This actually descended as it turned with the curve of the valley to the right, so it was an easy section to jog along. It then straightened out and started climbing up again.
Tomy surprise the road terminated a few minutes later at a car park. It was a cul de sac. The route took a trail from here to the left and headed steeply uphill. This was definitely the start of the crunch steep section. With a few zig-zags, I could see that my tail runner was coming up the road behind and had closed in a little after my long water bottle stop.
The trail was reasonable. It wasn’t difficult to find, but there was plenty of tall vegetation around. It wasn’t really causing any speed issues though. But between the vegetation, the steepness, and the various rocky outcrops and variations of slope gradient, it did mean that I had little or no chance of seeing the headtorch of my tail runner on this climb. I just concentrated on keeping my climbing speed as high as I could under the circumstances.
The route seemed to be going up a side valley off the main valley. I could sense steeper-sided valley walls on both sides. If I got a look behind I could see how I was climbing higher than the walls of the original valley I had come from, and beyond that the lights of Tenerife across the ocean beyond. Getting through this section whilst still dark was exceeding what I was hoping to achieve at the start of the leg. Overall progress had been excellent to this point to be here right now.
Needless to say, this was a long effort. Every now and again I would judge how much closer I was getting to the lights I could see above. I was closing all the time (of course), but they always seemed to still be quite a way above. But I was keeping a very good rhythm and was feeling physically fine.
After what seemed like an hour or so I could see that I was only one or two hundred meters below the top of the steep climb. But now the sky was starting to get tinges of blue. Daylight was on the way. But I continued to make good progress, and when I did pop out from the steep section into the middle of a more shallow valley floor it was still dark enough that I needed to keep my head torch active.
There were buildings with lights scattered around the valley. I couldn’t remember how far I had to travel through this less steep section before reaching the life base ahead. My over-optimistic brain was wondering if one of these buildings could be the life base. My more realistic brain was thinking that was unlikely.
Now that it was less steep I was able to get slow-jogging again. After a few hundred meters the trail led onto a minor road, and then that led to a more obvious road snaking its way up the valley. And of course, the level of light was increasing all the time, so now that I was on road I was able to turn my head torch off. Slowly but surely I was running past all the buildings that I had optimistically (but unrealistically) been thinking had the potential to be the life base.
About 5 minutes later the road did a bit of a zig-zag, and I looked back down the valley. I thought I could see a headtorch emerging into the shallow section of the valley, but it seemed to be moving crazily fast. Either I was having optical illusions, or it was some kind of vehicle.
Another 5 minutes later the route left the road and took a dirt road trail a little more steeply upwards into some lovely mature pine trees. When I looked back down the road I could definitely see a headtorch running rapidly up the road. That was no optical illusion.
Within a minute or two he had run up the hill I was walking and was about to overtake me. I said hello and commented on his amazing speed. We had a brief conversation as he eased passed. He explained that he was one of the relay runners, and that’s how he was running so quickly… aha! I then noted that his number was similar to the runner who had run past me a speed the previous night. Now it all added up. (of course, this wasn’t my tail runner from earlier in the leg… he wasn’t a relay runner). He sped off, cheerily telling me that there was only about 6km left to the life base. My optimistic brain was a little deflated by that, but it made perfect sense to my realistic brain.
Clearing the trees the trail went along the left edge of a small caldera, and climbed up a small hill beyond, topping out onto a small road. By now it was very definitely daytime. The landscape on this side of the island had a very different look. It was all much more green and lush. More grassy fields than desert scrub, with lots of pine forests visible around. And behind me in the distance beyond the valleys, I had emerged from I could see the ocean, and Tenerife in the distance.
It was all very lovely looking, but I had to get on with the less lovely task of pushing on towards the life base. After about a kilometre of relatively easy gentle uphill road running the route came to a road junction, but left the roads behind and headed steeply up a small, but beautifully grassily green, hill. It then meandered up and down over a few more bumpy hills. It was hard work, but undeniably gorgeous to run. That made the time and effort pass more easily.
I could see I was heading towards the heights of the middle of the island. More climbing took me up to the edge of a pine forest, and then over and into the forest for some more lovely trail running. A sharp left turn led to a short but steep descent down forest trails to cross a dry riverbed. It took me two goes to find which of the nearly parallel trails to take existing and climbing out on the other side.
There was another few hundred meters of forest running before the trail popped out onto a road running along the top of a ridge. This ridge felt like another crossing from the northern side of the island back more westward. Surprisingly the route here followed the road downwards. I thought it was possible that I had completed the last big climb and was now on the run-in towards the life base.
I managed to distract myself enough with these thoughts, and that it was good to be back to quick and easy gently downhill road running that I tripped on the road edge and went crashing down. Ironic that I should have a rare fall precisely because I was on one of the easier bits of the race and had stopped paying attention to my footfall.
About 500 meters on it was back off the road with a turn onto a trail heading down into the valley on the right. I could see that there seemed to be a quite large village in the valley ahead and was hoping that that might be where I’d find the life base.
It was now a civilised hour of the morning. I stopped just beyond the start of the trail to put my hat on since the sun was now up and generating a small bit of heat. I wasn’t going to take any chances, even though I reckoned it was probable that I would get away without it before reaching the life base if my guesses were correct. There were also some walkers coming up the trail whom I exchanged greetings with. It was definitely no longer the splendid isolation of running through the middle of the night.
I made good progress running down the hill. I was a bit more tired now, so it was an effort, but the trails were good quality so I was able to keep up a running pace (although probably not too much faster than normal walking in reality). As I descended down towards the center of the valley I could see a big football pitch in to the right in the valley. That was a definite sign of civilisation.
The trail merged onto a road (leading up to the pitch), and the route headed downhill from there. Still no sign of the village though. But a few hundred meters later it was onto a trail which went under a bridge carrying a bigger road and then arced around rightwards to emerge on the edge of a village. This must be it!
Of course there was a small kick in the tail, as the last 50 or 100 meters of the route went more steeply uphill on a road into the centre of the village. The cheers of a few of the life base crew greeted me in, and I happily went into the building to finish out what looked on paper to be the trickiest leg of the race.
In reality, the leg had extremely well. I hadn’t come remotely close to running out of liquids. In fact, I probably carried a litre into the life base! The trails had mostly run well, and I had paced it all out quite satisfactorily.
Given that I had a good sleep in Teror, how well this leg had gone, and that there would be no darkness for another 10 hours or so (at a guess) I felt I had no need to try to get any sleep here. I’d just aim to do my non-sleep routine of replenishing, refilling and recharging. I had definitely “turned a corner” in this race, and this was feeling like the beginning of the end!
Eoin Keith 