It’s about keeping all the parameters up for as long as possible.
Zach Miller
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At kilometer 25 I came across reality: cramps.
I was an abyss away from the finish line in the marathon mode, in The North Face Transgrancanaria, a 46 km ultratrail with a 1,900 gradient.
He had been racing for almost four hours and was three hours from the end.
And my middle-distance runner’s legs were already crying.
“Actually I’m papier-mâché,” I lamented, stranded on some slope on the island of Gran Canaria, between Tunte and Ayagaures, sipping the gels and waters I carried in The North Face hydration backpack, with the sun beating down and the mercury rising.
At that first moment, the body reacted well.
The salts and isotonic drinks did their job, for a while I thought I had recovered, I kept going.
But at km 35… There I saw the dragon’s eyes. Total collapse.
There were eleven kilometers left until the arrival and there I found myself, sitting on a rock on the Vicentillos point, contemplating the gray mountains of volcanic stone from a bird’s eye view, unable to move a finger, wondering how I was going to get out of such a mess.
And while my hamstrings, quads, calves, even abs were twisting, the dark thoughts were also growing.
What good had Runna’s five-month training plan been for?
And the long jogs with my friend VÃctor Vinyals?
And Pau Capell’s advice?
He was hungry and thirsty, he felt the uncertainty of a hurry.
What does the organization do in these cases?
Do you mobilize a helicopter, evacuate me in an ambulance, are there perhaps stretcher bearers patrolling the Canarian mountains?
There was no time to find out: I was rescued by the ultramarathoners who were passing by.
How tough these people are, they are self-confident tractors: they advance using their sticks, infallible over any distance. They are not affected by race time, mileage, surface, or slopes.
-All good? –they asked me when they saw me sitting there.
And I, shaking my head, answered no. Nothing was going well.
(My ability to move was reduced to that, shaking my head: any other gesture would have caused more muscle spasms.)
A runner who was hunched over gave me a watermelon-flavored 226ers gel.
–Don’t you need it?
“No, no, all yours,” he told me.
Another gave me water.
Another, a bottle of salts.
Another, a sachet of Ibudol, which is anti-inflammatory and analgesic and relieves contractions.
Aza, an ultramarathon runner escorted by a companion, offered me a bottle of vinegar:
–Take it in one sip and then drink water. It’s miraculous. It will get you out of trouble! –the couple left, shouting at me.
Without blinking, I downloaded all that arsenal of resources. I would have downloaded anything.
(…)
Aza was right: the vinegar had a miraculous effect.
The vinegar was miraculous and, I suspect, the rest of the products: the salts, the 226ers, the Ibudol…
A quarter of an hour later I was crawling down the ravine again, weaving between boulders and dry streams, risking my ankles with each stride, feeling comforted because my legs, even though sore, were responding.
I caught up with Manuel, a Canarian who was making his debut in ultramarathons, like me, and together we started talking.
I preserve slight fragments of the talk, I remember them in a haze, my mind was dull.
Manuel told me that his existence is boring, or that’s how he perceived it, and that’s why he did these things.
–If you don’t do stupid things, what’s the point of life?
Listening to him, I came to believe myself a superhero.
In the midst of a high, I risked jogging next to him.
-Come on! –I egged him on.
Reality hit me like a sledgehammer. Twice I stumbled on the stones, I could no longer bear it: I swallowed dirt, tore the skin on my hands and knees, I screamed:
–If I can’t take it anymore! Please let this end!
On both occasions, Manuel knelt and lifted me to my feet.
Me reconvino:
–I won’t pick you up the third time!
I shook the sand off my shoulders and legs and continued forward, increasingly elated because I could already see the finish line. I breathed in the sea breeze, Maspalomas stretched there in the background, the boulders disappeared, the rocky path was smoothed out, now transmuted into a dirt path, and I was definitely able to jog with joy: I gave my Vectiv Pro carbon plate shoes a boost.
I lost sight of Manuel, I walked the last five kilometers at my own pace and, upon reaching the finish line, I heard the voices of Silvia and Julia, my wife and daughter.
–Run, daddy! –Julia shouted.
7h47m had passed since the solemn start in Tejeda, and for a few hours (only for a few hours) I said to myself:
-Never more!
(…)
That night we went to Las Canteras beach to watch the start of the Classic distance (126 km), and I took the opportunity to talk with my daughter.
I told him about the phenomena that were on that outing: Courtney Dauwalter, the best ultramarathon runner in the world, and the great Zach Miller, who had trained by doing laps on the deck of a cruise ship. And I saw how the girl’s eyes lit up because, suddenly, she had discovered this world.
Now she says she wants to be an ultra runner.
