Diary of a middle aged runner

[Bierzo Baggie]

“The violence of the heat seemed to bruise the whole earth and turn its crust into one huge scar. One’s blood dried up and all juices vanished; the sun struck upwards, sideways and down, while the wheat went buckling across the fields like a solid sheet of copper. I kept on walking because it seemed to be the only way to agitate the air around me… till I was conscious only of the hot red dust grinding like pepper between my toes…. By mid-morning I was in a state of developing madness, possessed by pounding deliriums of thirst, my brain running and reeling through all the usual obsessions that are said to accompany the man in the desert. Fantasies of water rose up and wrapped me in cool wet leaves or pressed the thought of cucumber peel across my stinging eyes and filled my mouth with dripping moss.”

Nobody else describes the Spanish heat like Laurie Lee. He could easily have been describing the 10th edition of the rearranged Tebaida Berciana… probably the last race I’ll be doing for some time.