Races and stuff.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Unlike others on this illustrious forum, I’m quite partial to a bit of 10k now and again. I enjoy the short burst of sound and fury and it suits a low mileage runner like me just fine. And the Lugo 10k (or 9.82k this year as I’m reliably informed) is one of my all time favourites. Everything about it is brilliant. It’s superbly organized. You end up running on a world heritage site roman wall for the last 3 kilometres. It’s free. And they even print your name on your race number. Now how cool is that?

A recurrent theme on my ramblings about running and something which never ceases to amaze me is the age of some of the folk who regularly beat me. I’m talking about those sprightly young 60-somethings who churn out the kms at a pace marked by wisdom and a lifetime of experience rather than the bleeping of some GPS thingy. Spotted one of the breed as we headed to the start, Manuel, 67, from El Barco, who strung me along in the marathon of Toral de los Vados before leaving me in his wake at 30k. When the going gets tough….Well in Lugo I discovered that Manuel is nothing more than a snotty toddler. In Lugo I witnessed God, he wore shorts and a running vest hung from his withered, bony frame. More of that later..

This was the third time I’d run the Lugo 10k (or thereabouts). It’s always cold and misty. A thermometer outside a chemist’s marked -2º as we set off. Myself and my two travelling companions, Miguel Mushroom and Jose Maria, the man from Seville, had delayed the icy inevitable until the last possible moment by taking refuge in a nice warm café. But once the blood started to reach my fingers from the 3k point onwards the chilly winter’s morn lent itself to a faster than normal pace.

Two laps below the roman walls and one lap above took us to a slightly uphill home stretch and the finishing line next to the Town Hall. The clock marked 42 minutes which is about right for me and MM came in 4 minutes later. Then we waited for Jose Maria who only got into this running lark two weeks ago and being from Seville doesn’t like the cold much. JM’s refusal to shed a big, heavy tracksuit probably didn’t help but 1 hour and 4 minutes seemed a decent enough effort and I thought our new running convert would be quite pleased with himself. But he wasn’t. He seemed a bit glum.

The conversation went something like this.

“I was running with an old chap called Julian and I just couldn’t keep up. He had to leave me behind”.

Now that sounded familiar.

“Hey, chill out, that’s normal, there are loads of really good veteran athletes here. As you get older you lose speed but gain stamina!”

“He was very old”.

“Well, Manuel from El Barco is 67 and he beats me”.

“This guy was 88. He’ll be 89 in February”.

“Er, ..yeah, that’s old”.

In fact we had seen the gentleman in question break out into a semi-sprint a couple of minutes before JM had arrived. He was all skin and gristle and we’d debated on whether he was a late-60s or early 70s veteran. On hearing that the super-veteran was 11 years and 2 months short of a century I must admit I was sceptical. Back home I googled.

Julian Bernal Madina. Born 1919. World champion for his age category at 5000m (and I ask how many over 80s run 5000m!!).
More fascinating facts. Julian started running aged 76 to help get over the death of his wife. Since then he has taken part in at least 450 races. He goes for a swim every day in the sea. He even fought in the Spanish civil war for crying out loud. I can imagine JM going home and telling his missus that one.

“Hey, I’ve just been beaten by a war veteran”.
“Which war was that darling, Iraq? Vietnam?”
“No, the Spanish civil war”.
You’d think he was taking the piss wouldn’t you.

And some pearls of wisdom from the veteran of all veterans.

“I’ll keep running until I start getting tired”.

“I never go to the doctor’s me”.

“I eat a bit of everything, nothing in excess and cakes only at Christmas”.

“Sometimes I ask myself what I’m doing running, but then I just carry on till the end”.

“My son is my trainer. He is single and I’m a widower. While he works I do the housework and then we go training.

Source: El País.

And on that optimistic note, “it’s never too late,” ..Happy Christmas and many more running adventures for 2008 and beyond.