Day 15 – EU – Spain [Almonte to Sanlucar La Mayor]

20/12/19

39km

  From Almonte (Spain) to Sanlucar La Mayor (Spain)

Europe

Rain, rain, rain… but still a pleasant day!

I said goodbye to my host of two days, the very hospitable Tania, horse rider and owner of a beautiful cosy home in Almonte. I am hoping our paths will cross again in 2 years or so, when I will be making my way back to Cabo da Roca. Tania has gone out of her way to make me feel at home, helped me with my route and told me about Almonte and the sights not to miss!

I set out to run around 8:15am, under monsoon like rain. On top of my running attire, I was wearing a waterproof trousers and waterproof jacket. It did the job of keeping me from the rain and providing needed isolation from the wind, which happened to be pretty strong today.

The downside of the rain was that I could not run on any “Camino”, or trails, as they became impracticable with the mud and torrents of water that were running everywhere. I also could not take any pictures on my way, as I kept my phone tightly packed in a ziplock bag.

The upside is that in such weather, I take much less breaks. When I break, my sweaty clothes stick to my skin and get me cold very quickly. I need to keep moving to maintain a healthy and warm core temperature. A normal 40k run would involve around 1hr cumulative breaks on average. Today I had 30mn cumulative break. That’s very low. I also drank much less water: 1 litre, compared to 1.5 to 2l on a normal day.

All in all, as always, I checked in my hotel upon arrival and was under a warm shower within 10mn of checking in and into dry clothes in no time. So… why worry when I run, incomfort is but temporary!

Great news today: my friend Jean, the 8 years-old schoolboy of Singapore who interviewed me 3 weeks before the start of the World Run, received the book that I had sent him: “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne. This has been a very influential book for me, and since “Jean” was also the first name of “Passepartout”, I thought it was a very suitable gift ?

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: