Report by Guy
I suppose this starts on the Monday evening when I arrive in Mont de Marsan, and hear that the road into Spain has collapsed after heavy weekend rain. That just means rerouting slightly, but I message Steve Herington who will be travelling down by train overnight, arriving in Pau around 10am Tuesday. Unfortunately he takes a train up the ‘wrong’ valley and having driven through Pau I stop for a coffee and to pick up messages. He’s stuck, so I cut across to pick up the four of them and we all set off on a
50 mile detour.
The weather looks to be better than we half expected, though cold at night as I discovered, wild camping that first night, above Canfranc. Beautiful views when I looked out in the morning, but a bitter wind, and a quick visit from the Guardia Civil!
Steve’s over 75 race began at 10.30, in the rain but those few of us (only 17 out of 27 turned up ) in the Open race had sun, and a cool wind. After 600m of tarmac, where I retrieved two places to start the stiffer climb in 14th place, it was a winding ascent, sometimes runnable sometimes not (for me!). By halfway (490m up?) I was glad of water to rinse my mouth and for a small drink. As we got higher, with tired legs, it became harder to run within the narrow sheep(?) tracks and when we finally came out of the trees and could see what we imagined to be the top, the path got even trickier and I was no longer attempting to run anyway! The final climb was a choice of either a damp shallow ravine or tufty grass at the side. By this time I’d hit the proverbial wall, but overtook two others who’d hit the wall even harder! Finally we emerged onto a flatter, slightly muddy track and there was the much wished for finish line.
I was checked for a space blanket (compulsory kit, with the waterproof I was wearing) and allowed into the tent where a cup of coke, some left over ends of banana and a few squares of chocolate revived
me sufficiently to face the hair raising bitterly cold descent on the chair lift.
The unfortunate first over 75 was disqualified at the finish for having no hood on his jacket ( he didn’t bother to go to the technical briefing), so I ended up 3rd over 75, in 1hr 31 minutes, (unofficially because as an M80 I had to enter the Open race and so didn’t count). The 2nd M75 was apparently less than 30 seconds in front of me.
It was a tough race, with 986m of ascent over 6km, everyone said, but the views were amazing and the town of Canfranc Estacion well worth the visit.
