Friday 15 May 2015

Transvulcania 2015

So after three flights , numerous taxis and so many buses I have lost count we finally arrived on La Palma last Tuesday. Everything I had heard about the island is true. It really is spectacular. The landscape is epic with huge volcanic mountains rising out of the water to 2400m on one side and then amazing forested areas and beaches on the other side. For being such a small island it really has everything on offer. After we finally got to our apartment we hiked up some of the final descent of the race which was conveniently at our back door to have a look. It's an awesome steep winding trail cut right into the cliff and gives spectacular views down to the beach below and up over towards the ridglines and high points of the island. This hike wet my appetite to run the Vertical KM race which was on Thursday and takes the same trail up for 6.6km. After the little recce it was bed time and much needed sleep.

Not far from El Pilar
Final descent
On Wednesday we went to scope out a small section of the course near El Pilar(km 24 of the race). After getting off the bus at the wrong stop we had to hitch a ride back where we had come from and somehow we picked up a trail to get us to El Pilar. Although we had decided to only do a short 10-15km training run that morning it ended up(due to getting lost) being 25km. Anyway it was great to finally get on the course and seeing what it had in store and to try and get used to the heat! To be honest this section was one of the very few flatter parts of the course. It was lovely trail but it really was not what the race had in store for us at the weekend.

Last minute VK entry
I woke up on Thursday and decided to go into the main town of Los Llanos and see if there was a chance I could get a VK entry for that evening. To my surprise I did. The staff were incredibly friendly and were more than happy to give me an entry for later that day. So it was a full on rest day for me until it all kicked off at 5pm down at Puerto Tazacorte. The VK starts at the beach and rises up for 1200m over 6.6km. It is steep at the start and then it mixes up with lots of little steep pitches , short down hills and short flat sections following an epic ridge line overlooking the Island. I have been up the Chamonix VK many a times but never actually raced in a VK race before. Runners set off with 30 second intervals and the winner is obviously the fastest time to the top. The elites always go at the back of the pack and the slower runners tend to take off first. Being a late entry I was 5th to set off of about 80 runners.

Near the VK start
Almost done. Started down at the sea and hour earlier!
I had no idea what to expect I just wanted to take part in it. Off I went and I ran quite comfortably up the first steep zigzags and by about 400m up I had passed all the 4 runners who took off ahead of me. Now this was a weird experience for me. Front of the pack! Now I knew fair well I wasn't gona come close to a winning time but it was rather strange knowing everyone else was then behind me. It was actually pretty hard to know if I was going fast enough or not as once out front I had nobody in front of me to get an idea of my speed. I put my head down and just told myself to keep looking forward and not let anybody past me. It worked and I ploughed on pretty strongly always keeping a little in reserve as I was worried for the Ultra in two days time. For probably the only time in my life I crossed the finish line first. It was now a waiting game to see who came in next and after a few minutes the next guy arrived and the rest started to pour in. I finished with a time of 1hr 04mins. I knew the last years winner was 52mins so I knew my time was pretty reasonable but not world beating. The winner this year managed 50 minutes but I was incredibly happy with my run and to finish 24th overall after entering that afternoon and thinking that VK races were not really for me. I felt great on it and could have given a little more. I couldn't have gone much under and hour but I think next year if I have runners ahead of me then I could up my pace a little with something to focus on.

All set
Friday was again rest day and we managed to finally sort out a way to get to the race start. Word of advice if your going to run this race then rent a car! We made the mistake of not renting one and it would have helped massively if we had. The buses to the race start leave at 3am from Los Llanos but we were in Puerto Tazacorte meaning there was no buses(obviously) at 2am to get us to our race bus. We thought about a taxi but luckily a friend of ours(Fred) was also doing the race and she had a car so she kindly came to collect us from our apartment at 2.30am. Waking up at 1.30am for a race start at 6am is NOT ideal. If I go to race again I will be getting a tent and sleeping at the race start the night before and manage to wake up at 5am and that would make a hell of a difference.

Ready to go
The race starts at sea level at the lighthouse at Fuencaliente and over the next 50km slowly rises , descends and rises up to the highest point of the Islands Roque Le Mouchachas at 2400m. From there it is a quad bursting 18km 2400m descent down to Puerto Tazacorte and then the sting in the tail of a 5km 300m climb back up to Los Llanos and the finish. 73km 4000m+. I apologise now for the length of this post but I just cannot put this race report down in a short summary...

Amazing sunrise
4am at Fuencaliente. Two bloody hours before the race start. Being right on the coast and 4am it was a tad breezy and hundreds of runners were hunched behind the stone walls looking for shelter , eating breakfast and sleeping. Myself , Naila and Fred found a nice little spot and just chatted for a while before we headed down to the start line to find a spot maybe 12 rows from the front. None of us were going for a time but we had heard the race start was chaos. The race goes down to single track almost straight away and with 1800 runners on the course we just wanted to not get caught up in congestion and end up at a standstill from the word go. Obviously everyone else has the same idea! The atmosphere at the start line was amazing , huge PA system blaring out AC/DC, hundreds of very excited runners all set for an epic course it really was pretty special.

Lovely yet sandy trails
3....2....1.....Bedlam! Screaming , shouting , pushing , shoving , sprinting. It was bloody fantastic and slightly different to my usual races of 200 runners setting of chatting. We rounded the lighthouse and were soon on the single track. I opted to jump to the side of the track and just plod on up off the trail in my own space. The trail was more like a beach. Just sand , sand and more sand and went on forever. It was so so difficult to run on and really used up so much energy to try and keep a fast pace. I knew I was going out too fast but taking a glance behind me and seeing 1500+ more runners head torches chasing me up the hill made me keep moving as I just did not want to get caught up in the chaos behind. It was an awesome sight seeing all these head torches rise up out of the sea. It was a 6km climb on this horrible sand to the first mini checkpoint at the town of Los Canarios. I couldn't believe how many people were out on the streets so early to cheer us all on. I didn't take anything from the water stop here as I had only been going 50 mins and ran on through with hundreds of spectators cheering us on.

The entire start is like this
It was then on to the next water stop at km 16.5 Las Deseadas. Honestly I cannot remember this water station but I must have re-filled bottles here. We were still running on sand a lot! Already my calf's were feeling it from trying to push and get a stride on that kind of surface.  Next up was El Pilar at 24km the first real food stop and a place I had been to already with Naila a few days before. Some of the running to here was spectacular and as the sun was rising up over the clouds the rest of the course and mountain tops were popping out of this sea of cloud and it was amazing. I wish I had taken pictures but I was to busy trying to fight through the sand. It was great to run on a trail I knew and it was a lovely descent down into a packed El Pilar. I was 3hrs 16mins in. The elites ran through here an hour earlier! Insane , I genuinely do not know how. I grabbed more water here , took some salt capsules and a ton of watermelon.

Far right to low left is the final descent!
From here to El Revention(29.9km) it is a very dry dirt road. Not my favourite but the views were still amazing and it actually felt good to stretch the legs on a proper solid surface. Here I met Anna Frost(female course record holder) she was not racing as she has a bit of an injury but she was there to help out the Salomon team. She asked me how I was doing and when I replied my calf's were feeling it a bit she told me to get a move on and she came with me. She ran with me for the next few kms just chatting and giving me some gels and taking my mind off of my very tired calf's. The next 5km seemed to pass in no time. Thank you Anna that helped me a lot!

Getting a helping hand from Anna
On approaching the aid station El Revention at 29.9km there were signs everywhere warning people that the next aid station(Pic La Cruz) was 12km away and that we need to stock up on water as we were now headed out of the forested areas and there would be pretty much no shade from here to the finish. Here I got doused with buckets and buckets of water(it really was heating up) , drank god knows how much coke , re-filled bottles and ate more watermelon and I was off.

So off to Pic La Cruz at km 43 or so we thought! From here the course changes from lovely forests , sand and smooth trails to rocky , fairly technical with a load of climbing and descending. The going started to get tough here as the heat was really coming down on us. I was doing well with water and was only sipping to try and conserve as much as I could. I had started to eat a Mule Bar and also some gels so I was getting food in me. The course here is amazing and it was mind blowing looking behind and seeing all these runners on the narrow trails cut into the side of the mountains and running along the ridge lines. I was loving it but I was getting very hot and could feel my mouth drying out very quickly even immediately after drinking. Everyone started to slow here. I passed a small checkpoint at 38.5km called Pic La Nieve but it was only a place your timing chip got scanned , no water , no food. Every other year this has been a water stop but due to various reasons they took it away this year which was a BIG BIG mistake. I was still okay on water levels here , I mean it was very hot and slow work but I was managing and I knew from here it was about 4km to the aid station. Well things got a lot tougher. This section went on for what felt like forever. Up , down and over small hills again and again and again. Still no aid station. I actually wondered if I had somehow passed it! Lot's of spectators were giving their own coke cans and water to runners who were clearly in dire need of hydration. Some runners were even turning around and heading back down. It was really really hot and we were up on trails completely exposed to the baking sun. I don't mean to moan here. We all knew this was a hard race and it was going to be hot but this aid station was just never arriving. I had left the last aid station with a litre and a half of water and I was now down to about 100ml. I kept it for as long as I could and finally when I seen Pic La Cruz I drank the remainder. I have NEVER been so happy to get to water in my life. I stood under the hose for a few minutes to cool off and then re-filled bottles(2 x 500ml) , grabbed an extra 500ml bottle of powerade to take with me and ate more watermelon. From here I could see Los Muchachos at km 50. It really didn't look that far away. According to the race map it was meant to be 7km but it looked and felt like about 4! I know these are small numbers but on courses like this with so many small ups and downs it really feels a lot further than if it was a flat road. After the race the organisers did put out a notice apologising for taking away the aid station at Pic La Nieve and that they had made a mistake and the 12km to the checkpoint was more like 17km! A few medics did say that if the weather was 2 or 3c warmer then some people would have been seriously unwell , apparently lot's of runners they had to tend to at Pic La Cruz were borderline to going to hospital. I know some people might think that this is partly the runners fault for not drinking enough and this may be correct however getting an aid station wrong by 5km and also cutting one out at the hottest part of the course is pretty bad. This is the only criticism I would give to this race. Everything else was spot on.

Anyway the trail to Muchachos was again spectacular but I was fighting quite hard here to move at a decent pace so I took zero pictures. I arrived at the aid station and was very very happy. Km 50. Now a big descent and I was almost finish. I sat here for maybe 5 minutes to again re fuel. I looked over at the pasta plates but I just did not have the appetite for food like that in this heat so it was sweets and watermelon again. I looked at my watch for the first time of the race and noticed I was 7hrs 47mins in. I then thought to myself that if I just got moving then I could do this descent and final small climb and probably get a 10hr 30mins finish or at slowest 10hrs 45mins.

Almost at 50km
I left Muchachos feeling not too bad. My legs were actually pretty strong. I had a slight problem with my right knee but it was manageable. If that was my only problem then I was going to be happy the rest of the way down. Now the last descent is not a full on descent like the course profile shows. Yeah it does descend all the way back to the sea from 2400m but there is a few little flats and small climbs in there as well. Not like earlier in the race but enough to make you work. I was going well for the next 5km and then BOOOOOMM. I was floored. My knee started to hurt a bit more so I sat down for a few minutes to give it a rest and then the next minute I just couldn't get myself back up. My legs had seized and were starting to cramp badly. Everywhere! I started to get worried here , I had gone from going for 10hrs 30mins to actually wondering if I could get down at all. I had drank what I thought was enough and had taken salt to offset the cramps but I think the long section without an aid station just caught up with me here and my god did it floor me. I managed to get myself moving but it was a real struggle. Quads , calf’s , hamstrings even my arms were cramping. It was that bad. People were now passing me constantly and I went from feeling strong to being helpless and struggling down the mountain. The descent to Puerto Tazacorte at 68.4km was brutal. Mainly due to the cramps and the fact I constantly felt I was going to pass out. I had to fight so so hard to just stay upright and to make matters worse it wasn't getting any cooler in fact descending to the beach it was getting hotter and hotter. The black volcanic rocks underfoot were like radiators cooking me from below and the sun baking down above. It was pretty damn hard to keep moving. I stumbled into the aid station 10hrs 29mins into the race. That was the end of that goal. The next one was just to finish. The cut off time was a long way off. 17hrs is the limit so I was nowhere near that even if I walked backwards for the last 5km uphill I would make that time but I was genuinely worried my body might just collapse and not even let me finish.

Happy? Honestly I was!
Again I got covered in buckets of water , re-filled bottles yet again and I was off to Los Llanos and the finish. The next km or two was up a dried out riverbed and more bloody sand. I stumbled up here as best I could. It was then onto some winding cobbled roads as I climbed up to the town. I was completely exhausted and I was really really pushing to move up this climb. Strangely I had lot's of power in my legs but the cramps and what felt like my entire body was completely beat up. It's so hard to describe as I say I felt strong in the legs but I struggled to move all sounds like it shouldn't make sense. I finally made it onto the road in Los Llanos and started to get cheered on and greeted by everybody. It was just 2km to the finish. The final stretch on the road was tough but with so many people out in the bars and on the road shaking your hand and patting your back it helps so so much to get you moving and forget your about to pass out. I even stopped and old lady here and asked her if I could have her can of coke she was drinking and she gladly gave it to me. Thank You!

Now there's a struggling face
The finish line straight was packed with spectators and it was a pretty special feeling..I think. I can't really remember. I crossed the line in 11hrs 25mins 196th/1800. I then turned and headed straight to the paddling pools and just lay there in the cool water. I was destroyed. Naila who had unfortunately quit the race around km 41 due to the heat and other problems was there to greet me and after taking one look at me she felt the need to tell me how terrible I looked. Thanks for that!

Did that actually happen?!
I have so much more to tell about this incredible race so I will put up another post about it next week. That was Transvuclania. A truly epic course and the hardest I have ever fought to just finish a race. I am very happy with having completed this and a strong VK so early in the season and I am only going to build on this and get stronger. Thank you to the beautiful island of La Palma and all those people who cheered me on , shook my hand and threw buckets of water over me. It was one hell of a race.

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