Day 13 – EU – Spain [Moguer to Almonte]

18/12/19

34.5km

  From Moguer (Spain) to Almonte (Spain)

Europe

Short day of running, end of week 2 – tomorrow is a rest day!

I was looking forward to today, as it was meant to be a short day, 100% on trails, or “Camino Rural” as they call it around here.

Leaving my hotel at 8:30am I was hoping for a nice start and I hit the trail with a lot of gusto. Alas not even 2 kilometers in, BoB suffered its first flat tire. The terrain was quite accidented, shaped by the recent heavy rains that have hit the region. Loads of debris were washed on the trail, stuck in the mud, there was not much I could do in terms of prevention, I was mostly trying to keep my feet safe and away from sliding and twisting.

We resumed the run and for a long while it was very nice and pleasant. I was on a Camino that was zigzagging through the many agricultural farms of the areas, all cultures covered in the white plastic sheets. Andalusia is world famous for its intensive agriculture, most of it labelled ecological.

About 18km into the run, I left the agricultural landscape and got into a pine tree forest. It was a bit scary because it must be hunting season, and I could hear quite a lot of gunshots at regular intervals. Being dressed in black and pink, I thought I could be mistaken for some sort of wild animal. And the noises emitted by BoB, squeaking and hissing, could also add to the confusion.

I tried to run fast, but the trail was made of sand and we sank every time I tried to pick up the pace.

That’s when we got our second flat tire. I was super anxious, imagining I was sitting in the middle of a field surrounded by blood-hungry hunters! I sat down by a tree, singing aloud to make sure I could not possibly be confused for an animal (well, merely hoping it would not sound like wailing!) and proceeded to repair the tube.

Ten minutes later we were back on our feet, but I was resolved to get out of the forest and back on the road. Ten kilometers of tarmac and traffic later, I reached Almonte. A beautiful Andalusian town in the middle of rural Spain. I was on time for Tapas, naturally, and dug into a platter of Carrillada, a star dish in the region!

After these 2 first weeks of running, we average 39.5km run a day. This is in line with my plan. As I get more and more mileage in the legs, the daily runs will slightly increase, and the idea is that over the 2 years run, we will be averaging the 42.2km a day, a daily marathon.

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: