the beginning
published in Like the Wind Magazine issue 32, June 2022
I never thought of running as a “one foot in front of the other” thing. instead, I’ve always seen it as monumental achievement for super humans. How could someone run for so long? And why?
I feel that I am in a good place right now. I run frequently but I started so recently that I vividly remember my first runs: what I felt, what I said (thought) during my runs, and what excuses I used to make myself stop. I also remember those first longer runs – and I thank Covid-19 for that.
In March 2019, Covid-19 was already a big deal on the news: Europe had its first diagnosed cases; Spain (Barcelona, to be more precise) had its first patient, and I was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a writer, working on a travel assignment for a magazine. We were living in paradise back then. Our days were a mix of restaurants, landscapes and navigating tortuous trails with a 15kg backpack. Even though it could be painful and exhausting, I would never complain or fall behind. However, things went downhill the moment I decided to join my partner on a run at the end of the day.
I should explain that the writer doing the assignment with me is an ultra runner – or, as I thought at the time, one of those psychotic human beings who runs for hours (or even days) in the middle of nowhere, just for pleasure. We scheduled our run for 6pm: a “soft” 3km from the hotel along Funchal seaside. I ran 500m, and every part of my body was shouting at me. It felt so wrong.
Back in Lisbon and my normal routine, my scapula started feeling weird. While we were in Madeira, I had photographed some tricky treks and, in some cases, had carried a lot of weight on just one shoulder. At the beginning of the summer, during a three-hour drive, I felt my scapula moving freely and painfully pressing against the car seat. I was diagnosed with a dislocated scapula, and a few months of physiotherapy were on the horizon. “It’s not the worst time for something like this to happen,” I thought – I had no assignments and had saved some money. It felt like a great time to get back in shape and use the physiotherapy as my training schedule.
By November 2019 I decided it was time for another go at running – after all, how hard could it be? I went for it, alone, starting from my back door in Algés. I ran (walked) 8km; I took more than an hour to do it and could barely speak at the end. I was over the moon.
As winter came, my scapula had stabilised, and although I had some assignments, lockdown was on the horizon again as a Covid-19 surge erupted in Lisbon for the second time. Time to start running… again! For the past seven years I have spent my weeks in the city and my weekends and holidays in the country, at my mother-in-law’s house. It’s only an hour’s drive from Algés and I can escape the madness that, at times, has fuelled me.
Still humbled and ashamed by my first couple of runs, I decided to stick to my front door HANG ON, IS THIS AT M-i-L’s?, I ran 50m from one door to another. I did this until I had covered 5km. I had never run 5km straight in my life. I felt like a superhero. I took a screenshot of my Strava and sent it back to my ultra running partner. I was on top of the world.
Next day, I decided to go for it again. Over the next couple of months, I increased my distance, always felling more accomplished. What a feeling it was to be 39 and achieving something, doing something that only a few months previously had been close to impossible. I started gradually moving from door to door to fence to fence. And then I left the house and went for the trails. That was the key moment: it was then that I got hooked. Those first 5km outside the house: the wild boar footprints, the partridges running in front of me, the sound of trees and the branches cracking under my feet. It was beautiful. I had to admit that lockdown was one of the best things that happened in my life. Covid-19 took a lot of my assignments but it gave me trail running.
Back in Algés, I kept running. The 8km along the river that had nearly killed me now took me less than an hour. I was doing 10km in 60 minutes and feeling like a star. That was when the IT band showed up.
Running [ital] sounds [end ital] like the healthiest of sports. I mean, one foot in front of the other. Old ladies and kids can run marathons. What could possibly go wrong?
A lot… as I learned the hard way. I saw a new physiotherapist for my IT band. This one told me I needed to stop running and start going to the gym – pretty much the worst thing someone could tell me at that moment. First of all, I was getting seriously addicted to the outdoors. I didn’t want to set foot inside a gym again. Second, trail running was giving me a sporting happiness I had never had.
Ever since I was 12 I had dreamed of surfing and the ocean. I can’t remember how many surfboards and boogie boards I have owned in my life; however, to say I have been unsuccessful is an understatement. I don’t think I ever stood up on a surfboard for more than five seconds. I am so bad, it hurts. The fact is I was never co-ordinated enough, but I tried, and kept trying. I’m stubborn like that. At some point it really felt good just to be out there on the ocean, away from the city, even though I wouldn’t call myself “accomplished”.
I decided to ignore the physiotherapist. I would not stop; I would reduce. I would not go to the gym; I would work out at home. I would not stop trail running. A quote from Lone Survivor, the 2013 movie about Navy SEALS, kept coming to mind: “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Moderation is for cowards.”
Dreams and stubbornness aside, I knew some things could not be ignored: I was getting close to 40, I still smoked a pack a day and had never run in my life, so injures were going to show up. I needed to train. But I also needed to run… at least for my sanity. Luckily, home exercise and a few slow runs brought me back. My knee still hurt sometimes but it was no longer debilitating.
Exactly nine months since my “first” run (at least on Strava), I stood on the starting line of a trail race in southern Portugal. Ahead of me was 16km with a little less than 700m elevation gain. Delights of the course included the “descent of death”, and the “rolling stones”, where the organisers placed a fixed rope for people like me to hold.
I decided to behave as normally as possible, so I went for a cheeseburger and a beer the night before. The following morning, there I was in my cheap supermarket running clothes, intimidated by the trail running “weekend warriors” warming up and preparing their fancy watches. My writer friend (the same guy who nearly killed me back in Madeira) took me to the race and lent me a watch. His advice was something like: “Dude, you can finish this walking!” I got everything ready, took a deep breath and waited for the start.
All stories like this one end up with a cliché for a reason: clichés introduce the idea of something magic happening. That day, magic happened as I looked at the first ascent. I focused on what was ahead of me; I walked the steep hills; I ran when I could, but I never gave up. I knew I could go well beyond what my body wanted, I did it back in November. I still had the memory of wanting to stop, of thinking about finishing being impossible. But I could also remember how it felt to progress through another kilometre. I owed it to myself; I owed Covid-19 a medal and a thank you note.
We could ask any trail runner what they like most about the sport. Most likely, the answer would be the camaraderie (or at least it would certainly be in the top three, behind something like “achievement” or “the view”). At the finish, I was still thinking about stretching when someone invited me for a beer. Sport with beer, laughter and a pork sandwich? I was hooked. All these trail races finish with a kind of celebration. I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone mad about anything – not even coming second.
On the drive back to Lisbon, we started talking about the next trail. When and where? Someone told me this was addictive but I could have never imagined it… at least not so quickly. There we were in Canal Caveira, a small roadside town that used to serve all the Portuguese driving to and from holidays in Algarve, on the way home from my first trail event, having a beer and another sandwich to balance the lost calories lost and discussing future races. Obidos it is.