Transgrancanaria Marathon

At last, it was Friday morning and time for Petra and me to take the bus up to Tejeda for the start of the Transgrancanaria Marathon. Climbing up to 1,500 meters on winding mountain roads, the ride was pretty exhilarating, especially when we had to pass a few minor rental car accidents, but ultimately we were at the starting line. After a few kilometres on asphalt, a wild climb started up to Roque Nublo. Like in past races, I am really strong going uphill and I started overtaking tons of other runners on the trail heading up. Once there, I was treated to incredible views of the 3,715 meters high volcano Tejde on nearby Tenerife.

From Roque Nublo, the trail soon started going downhill, with a total descent of nearly 3,000 meters during the race on mostly technical trails. As strong as I am going up, going down has never been my thing and I struggled to keep up with the other runners who all seemed much more able (or at least, less risk-averse). Committed not to roll my ankle again, I started falling behind and by the second checkpoint in Tunte I was somewhere in the middle of the pack. This was around 1 pm and by then I was really feeling the sun, to a point that I had to stop (which is normally against the "Rasmus Rules") in the shade for a few moments as I was starting to feel dizzy.

Coming into the third checkpoint at Ayagaures, I was about one hour ahead of the cut-off and slowly feeling better. Having done most of the climbing, I was looking forward to simply running the last 16 kilometres down to the finish in Parque del Sur but, once again, the trails proved way too technical for any sustained running.

In the end, I finished as number 693 of the 1,200 runners starting with a chip time of 8 hours and 23 minutes. Not my best, but definitely not my worst, and I will forever take with my the views of this beautiful island.