Run or Die (13 page)

Worse, I can’t chase Gerard Quintana from my head, who is singing lyrics that keep coming back at me: “
I’m falling. I’m gradually going. …
” I can’t stop imagining and anticipating a slip, as if I were in a race, as if I were visualizing the course, my rivals, and even victory. Now I imagine the film scene of my fall in slow motion. I feel my foot slip on the ice, and my body starts to tumble down. What then? That’s a moment that I can’t envision, that I can’t anticipate. I
can
imagine myself about to fall, trying to hold on to a hole or a stone to stop my fall and succeeding. I can even wonder what thoughts would go through my head if the soles of my running shoes lost contact with the ice.
Why on earth did you leave the ice pick at the end of that down-climb?
I am reminded that the decisions we make, however small and insignificant they may seem when we make them,
can
decide our fate. And once they are made, retracing our steps can sometimes be more tortuous and difficult than going on to find a solution.

Time seems to stop as I descend these hundreds of feet. Only five hours ago I was surrounded by people, cameras, food, and colleagues. The mountain seemed small when I had that entourage. Now I am alone. The mountain has become huge and imposing, and I am a mere leaf whose fate depends on the way the wind blows. But isn’t that what we seek when we climb mountains, when we run along ridges and peaks? The feeling that we are human, puny and insignificant in this world when surrounded by the overwhelming might of nature. That we are like lost newborns searching for a mother’s protection against a vast, strange world. In that moment we face the struggle to overcome or, perhaps, to go unperceived, careful not to wake the ogre slumbering among the giants around us, until we find our mother’s arms.

T
he sun has reached its zenith and is slowly beginning its descent westward. The warm morning had seemed to augur a splendidly radiant day, but the blue sky has been clouding over and the mists in the valleys have settled over the peaks, leaving enough light to illuminate the landscape but not enough to make it a warm day. Hours ago, I left the idyllic cabin where I had spent the night. After so many sleepless nights, the rest has given me the necessary strength to continue my run and try to discover what I am chasing or what it is that is chasing me. All I know is that I must follow my instinct to find the right path.

The broad alpine meadows have disappeared from view and left me in much wilder mountain territory, where I now leap between peaks and canyons, from valley to valley, in the opposite direction of the path the sun is following through the sky.

People have always been confident that I would be able to achieve what I set out to do, certain that what was difficult for others is easy for me. That may be a result of the self-confidence I communicate, since I tend to see the positive side of things and react calmly to problems that crop up. I suppose I look as relaxed when I go down to shop at the supermarket as I do 10 minutes before
I set out for a world championship. And it isn’t that I’m
not
sure of myself; on the contrary, I have always thought that I shouldn’t feel nervous when I’m about to do something I do well and that, what’s more, I practice and train for almost 360 days of the year. It’s like a baker getting the jitters the day he has to bake bread. In the end, bread is bread and maybe the bread turns out good or bad depending on a number of things that escape the baker’s control, but the bread will be made according to the same recipe whether it is Monday or Sunday.

Alba was the only person who didn’t take this self-confidence for granted. She was able to see through this padding my subconscious gave me and find the insecurity gnawing beneath. Or maybe she just wanted to poke fun and hound me with the same questions that stirred in my own consciousness.

When I came home after training, the first thing I’d do was grab a jar of Nutella and devour it, spoonful after spoonful, even as I was imagining Alba behind me, waiting to scold me. And when I looked around, there she would be, arms folded, looking furious, though I knew she was only doing it to wind me up.

“Do you think you can win the world championships on Sunday if you put on a pound every day with your intake of chocolate?” she’d say in a deliberately angry voice.

“Hmm. I’ve just been training for five hours, and it was very cold today, so I burned it all up,” I’d reply. “And you know that as far as I’m concerned, winning isn’t what counts. There’s more to it than that, and if I have to give up chocolate in order to win a race, then bring on defeat.”

And we would burst out laughing and start in on a long argument about happiness, the importance of doing what you like, eating what you like, and living life with gusto. Although we share
the same ideas, we still love to argue for hours on end between the kitchen and our bedroom.

In fact, it doesn’t really matter what I do when I race. She has never come to see one, although she often went for runs herself. She knew that competition was a source of motivation for me, and despite not sharing that motivation, she understood it. I often encouraged her to come with me to run a race, but she would say she didn not need a number pinned to her chest to know that no one could beat her when it came to enjoying the everyday pleasures of being with nature.

Perhaps that was why I fell in love with her.

DAYS 4 & 5

The alarm rings again, for the fourth day in a row. The sense of physical well-being from the previous day and the dose of adrenaline during the final miles make me feel lively and optimistic. Days go by, and although it’s still a long way off, the Mediterranean is drawing closer and closer.

After considering the problems we encountered on the first few days of the crossing—the harsh weather conditions and huge amount of snow on the highest reaches of the Pyrenees that forced us to change our route several times and to increase the mileage—we decide as a team to increase the length of the trek by one day. This gives me more time to sleep and recoup my energy.

Although this new plan relieves me of only 6 miles a day, the project seems to change radically. I leave in the mornings without the pressure of feeling I will be struggling at the end of each stage. In fact, the difference between a run of 68 miles in 15 or 16
hours and a run of 62 miles in an hour or two less may not seem like much, but it means that I have the leeway of an extra day, and that I can be sure I will see the sunset when I’m having dinner rather than from the last plateau on that day’s run. Being able to sleep one or two hours more every night
does
radically change the character of my adventure. If my only worry so far had been wondering whether I’d be able to make it each night, I am now convinced that gradually, if I keep up a steady pace, we will arrive at the Mediterranean. My real worry, then, this morning is what shape my feet will be in at the end of the day, since I’ve been suffering from heel blisters. My knees are beginning to stiffen; my muscles are tired, and so is my heart.

After warming up on a 6-mile gentle downhill run to loosen my joints, we start on the long climb to make the leap to Benasc. I think how incredibly well my body is responding this morning after the way I suffered in the first hours of the run on my second and third days. Where is the pain hiding? Where are the shooting pains in my thigh muscles and the strain in the knees? What are they waiting for before they put in an appearance? Can my body have possibly gotten accustomed to all the effort? Or is it waiting for a moment of weakness to attack?

These thoughts vanish as I run uphill between Joan and Neto along comfortable paths among meadows and woods. On earlier days I’ve had to concentrate on simply taking one step at a time, eyes glued to the ground and gritting my teeth so that my muscles obey my thoughts, ignoring the pain. This morning, though, I can look up, surveying the landscape being warmed by the sun, following the animals running through the woods, or sprinting ahead to take a photo of my friends who are accompanying me. Or just enjoying the fact that I am running without having to think about
my body or my brain—simply running. It has taken my body almost four days to start to enjoy this long trek to the Mediterranean.

Routine has set in, a cycle repeated from sunrise to sunset: My musical alarm goes off, and I wake up with my head buried in the pillow. A good breakfast of cereal and bread and jam to build up strength. I start running before the sun comes out, while it is still cool. I reach a steady pace, not so gentle that the miles stick to me like my sheets in the morning, but not too brisk so as to prevent me from enjoying the landscapes where we are leaving a trail of footprints. Benasc, Cerler, Bassiero, the beautiful lakes in the National Park of Aigüestortes, the lake of Sant Maurici, the Pallars valleys. I’m able to share all this time and scenery with friends who have come from near and far to accompany me and give me support.

I eat a roll at midday, then set off running again, leaving the cool of the morning behind. In the heat that hits this central part of the crossing, light pain returns—slight tendinitis in my feet and knees, small heel blisters or blisters between my toes that Sònia treats as they appear.

We go down to the valley bottom, where we rest before we need to switch on our headlamps, and we wrap up well against the low night temperatures. My legs are beginning to suffer the accumulated effect of the efforts I’ve been making day after day. A good plate of pasta for dinner while we talk to the rest of the team and to friends who have come on the run. David gives me a painful but necessary massage, and to end the day, it is back to bed and to sleep, thinking about what to expect in the morning and dreaming of moments we’ve experienced on the day that’s just ended.

In this way time goes quickly, and without realizing, we have already reached the gateway to Andorra. As we start to climb the Tor Valley, I breathe in air I soon recognize. We’ve had a lot of
routine days, getting on with it, making steady progress to the Mediterranean. In fact, I’ve had too many days like that and have forgotten the last time my legs felt pain caused by acceleration, the last time they suffered because they had accumulated so much lactic acid, which prevented me from taking long strides, lifting my knees high, and feeling my leg stretch behind in order to drive my body forward. I can no longer remember what my heart feels when it pounds so energetically and accelerates, bringing a taste of blood to my mouth, or how my breathing cuts out when it can’t bring more oxygen to muscles that are clamoring for it. I can’t even remember what speed is, and I miss it. I feel slow and heavy. Everyone is running shoulder to shoulder with me, accompanying my lethargic feet out of sympathy. Everyone can overtake me, accelerate, and help me while I stay steady and still, like a truck that keeps its brakes on downhill. I am easy prey for any predator—my senses are dozing, and my sharp reflexes and usual nimbleness lie forgotten in some corner of the Pyrenees.

My thoughts can’t find a way out of this vicious circle; they make me feel even slower, crush me against the earth. My eyes fill with tears as I think how my stride is no longer that of a nimble runner who imagined he was a mountain goat leaping from crag to crag. I’ve changed into a bear that lumbers slowly and steadily. I have only steadiness, strength, and weight to protect me against predators. I don’t like to feel like this: lethargic or that I must protect myself against myself. I begin to fight back. No. I am not a bear; I have always been a mountain goat. I
am
swift and nimble, and that is the spirit I carry within me. I want to feel that, need to feel that, or I will sink into a spiral of self-destruction: I need to know I can still fly.