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| The dry road surrounding Cantoblanco - Madrid |
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| Climbing hills in the country around Tres Cantos, Madrid |
Today it was weird and, as I've come to realise only now, quite dangerous too. I scheduled an off-road running session, towards the mountainous landscapes from Cantoblanco to El Pardo, the renowned residencia of Francisco Franco. The idea was to cover a distance of about 30 km, even though the main purpose of this session was to run on very irregular terrain for a minimum of 2 hours.
The map was very clear. From Cantoblanco Universidad, follow the parallel to the autovia towards Tres Cantos, at the Estaciòn de El Goloso turn left into the wild. In theory, after running for about 11 km, I should have reached El Pardo, a village in the middle of nowhere, only known for the Royal Palace and residence of general Franco, when he
was head (dictator is probably more appropriate here) of the Spanish state. My plan just couldn't go any more wrong than it did. I kept going in a completelydifferent direction, driven by the beautiful terrain and hills. I was so enthusiastic about those hills that I basically got lost after about 7km. I really didn't mind. It was beautiful. Towering hills all around me and running in fuera de carretera pavimentada was a feeling that, despite the earlier misfortune with my plan, I will gladly repeat. Around the 10th km, I was able to find the highway again and see the cars and the buses from afar. Aware of my location I decided to go really into the wild. Another turn to the left and I found myself running downhill for a while, towards a small river and some cows I could already see.
Crossing the river was not a big deal due to some rocks that were firmly embedded in the ground. Only the tips were out of the water, making it possible to simply cross the river by jumping over. Amazing! After about 2 km of going downhill and crossing the river, there was no other way than to go up towards the grass fields, where cute cows were munching.
Turns out those were not cows at all. A cow with a penis and two big horns coming out of his head, watching me like a defused torero, was definitely a bull.
Those were all bulls!
And one of them was starting to chase me, as I was running towards it. Now, I am aware that I'm a reasonably decent runner. But I had the impression that bull could give me a run for my money. Moreover, it didn't look like he would have stopped chasing me any time soon. One lesson I learned on the streets of Southern Italy is "when you cannot fight it, run it". And that's what I did. I ran back towards the river, faster. Definitely faster.
Call it interval training, fartlek or speed play. I couldn't care less. The bull would soon become a thing of the past and could eventually return to my regular pace.
The map was very clear. From Cantoblanco Universidad, follow the parallel to the autovia towards Tres Cantos, at the Estaciòn de El Goloso turn left into the wild. In theory, after running for about 11 km, I should have reached El Pardo, a village in the middle of nowhere, only known for the Royal Palace and residence of general Franco, when he
was head (dictator is probably more appropriate here) of the Spanish state. My plan just couldn't go any more wrong than it did. I kept going in a completelydifferent direction, driven by the beautiful terrain and hills. I was so enthusiastic about those hills that I basically got lost after about 7km. I really didn't mind. It was beautiful. Towering hills all around me and running in fuera de carretera pavimentada was a feeling that, despite the earlier misfortune with my plan, I will gladly repeat. Around the 10th km, I was able to find the highway again and see the cars and the buses from afar. Aware of my location I decided to go really into the wild. Another turn to the left and I found myself running downhill for a while, towards a small river and some cows I could already see.
Crossing the river was not a big deal due to some rocks that were firmly embedded in the ground. Only the tips were out of the water, making it possible to simply cross the river by jumping over. Amazing! After about 2 km of going downhill and crossing the river, there was no other way than to go up towards the grass fields, where cute cows were munching.
Turns out those were not cows at all. A cow with a penis and two big horns coming out of his head, watching me like a defused torero, was definitely a bull.
Those were all bulls!
And one of them was starting to chase me, as I was running towards it. Now, I am aware that I'm a reasonably decent runner. But I had the impression that bull could give me a run for my money. Moreover, it didn't look like he would have stopped chasing me any time soon. One lesson I learned on the streets of Southern Italy is "when you cannot fight it, run it". And that's what I did. I ran back towards the river, faster. Definitely faster.
Call it interval training, fartlek or speed play. I couldn't care less. The bull would soon become a thing of the past and could eventually return to my regular pace.
At this point I was really lost. In fact, I was not running the same road back. When a very big, vicious and angry bull is chasing you and the only weapon at your disposal is two fruit gels in the belt, you can be excused for straying a from the right path, just a bit. I kept running, again driven by the positive feeling of the road. The signs of bike wheels on the dusty road made me feel like I was in the right place. Sooner or later I would have ended up at the carretera and run back home. Not so soon, Francesco.
I decided to switch on the mp3 player with some classical music I had prepared two days ago. The beauty of classical music is that it really doesn't completely isolate me from whatever is around me. Therefore I could clearly hear some dogs barking closer and closer. Two of them had such beautiful teeth...
I decided to switch on the mp3 player with some classical music I had prepared two days ago. The beauty of classical music is that it really doesn't completely isolate me from whatever is around me. Therefore I could clearly hear some dogs barking closer and closer. Two of them had such beautiful teeth...
I stopped immediately in search of a stone or something that I could have used against to protect myself. I really like dogs. But when they're two meters from my quadriceps and determined to attack me...not cute, at all. On top of that, I had no stones, no branches, no weapons. Again, only gels.
The noise of the dogs probably alerted the man who was coming towards me, standing still in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by five dogs who were not waiting for me to throw them any ball. Talking to the farmer, who was actually a shepherd, was as hard as talking english to a Spaniard from the country. I realised that switching to Italian would have been a smarter choice in my quest to express my will to go home. The shepherd collected his dogs with a dry aquì. I'm sure that wouldn't have worked with me.
He gave me instructions about how to go back. After only 3 km the road
became familiar again and I could relax with the music of Prokofiev.
Destinacion Cantoblanco Universidad.
Madrid
