Circular de Tejeda

It has been a very long time since I have up-dated this Blog (I am sure not too many people have noticed), partly due to being very busy with work etc. and partly due being disappointed with my last race, Circular de Tejeda.

About one month ago I ran a race called Circular de Tejeda in Gran Canaria, which was a 38km trail race with alot of climb. From the beginning I was not on form and found the early (set by Ismael Molero Bethencourt) pace hard! Which was surprising as it was the perfect sort of race for me, steep climbs and rocky.

It was not long before Ismael opened at gap and I really had to struggle to keep him in eyes’ distance. However suddenly (around 15km) without realising it I was back together with him, we ran together for a few kilometres, however I found it difficult to hold my pace and started to drop back again. I found the next few kilometres very hard and started to cramp. To add to the misery I also took a wrong turning and ran about 500m in the wrong direction before realising that I made a mistake. When I got back on track I had been caught by the 3rd placed runner…and mentally I was defeated! I hobbled the next 5km, feeling really dehydrated and cramping badly. And if things weren’t bad enough I took another wrong turn (not my fault…the taping during this race was the worst I have ever seen)…and to cut ‘a long story short’…after several phone calls to the race organisers I could not understand where I was supposed to run and decided to drop out of the race and hitched a ride back with the red-cross. Not a good day…but a lovely course…