The Proença Cross Trail

Welcome back to the third edition of the CAL-FIT blog! 

So on Friday the 8th of December it was time to drive up Proença-a-Nova for the last event of the 2023, about two hours twenty from us in Monte Estoril. To be honest I had no clue what to expect from said destination, all I knew was that it was most probably going to be hilly as the race finished there. On first impressions we turned up and were like “qu’est-ce que fuck?!” an absolute ghost town! If there had been any tumbleweed knocking around it would have felt at home there. Ok, just to give context though in rural Portugal they’re very traditional in their opening times, so generally things open in the morning at say nine or ten then everything will close at three in the afternoon then open again in the evening. We arrived about quarter past four so naturally everything was closed, but I was definitely surprised to see the streets so dead. Massive horror movie vibes… So we checked into the accommodation we’d booked, the Olivia apartments. Now upon booking we thought we would have an entire apartment as advertised, as it turned out the lady at check-in said she would show us to our room? Basically it turned out we had a shoe box bedroom in a shared apartment with some other family.. Another “qu’est-ce que fuck?! moment! Definitely not what we signed up for. 

At 6pm I went to collect my number from the race registration around the corner from where we were staying, my number for the race was 1950. I must say this was definitely one of the most friendly events I’ve been to, the organisers were great. Big shout out to https://horizontes.pt/  these guys were awesome from registration to the aid stations on the trail and at the finish line. Will definitely be doing another event with these guys for sure.

It was time to go out for dinner and fuel up for the race ahead, we ended up going to a nice little pizzeria round the corner from us. By this time the  town had started to wake up and the restaurant became busy rather quickly. For myself pre race I don’t overthink or over complicate things in terms of food, get the calories in. They will get burnt the next day 100%. The waitress said “ you want soup?” I thought yea I want soup,  so out came some chicken broth with some small type of pasta in it. Perfect pre race starter, after that I had a large pizza which I polished off with minimal effort and finished off Linda’s pasta as well.

By this time I thought it would be only right for me to have dessert too which was some kind of oreo cookie mousse thing, so tasty I considered having two, but I didn’t want to take the complete piss, too much rich creamy dessert probably wouldn’t be the best the next day. In general I’m not much of a breakfast person and prefer to fuel up the night before. We were starting at 08:15 the next morning, if I was to have have breakfast that would involve getting up at 5am to eat, fuck that I would rather get the extra rest. 

After dinner we headed back to our shoe box room in the shared apartment, yay! Normally I have a couple of beers the night before a race just to relax and calm any nerves but this time I’m still on the sober train, so how do I calm any pre race nerves? 

Well we’ve been watching the WWII mini series The Pacific on netflix, so we carried on with that and the episode was about the USMC fight to control the island of Peleliu against the Japanese. This episode was particularly brutal, high casualties, basically no water and coming under heavy fire. So after watching this and then thinking about my task the following day I felt very calm and relaxed as all I had to do was run around some hills with more than enough food and water. No one is going to try to shoot me or stab me. It was a great way to put the race into perspective. 

RACE DAY!!!

So the time has come to throw down, no more training, no more planning. In the words of my old mate Warren Heilig before stepping onto the footy field  “ DEAD SET KANTS, WE’RE NOT HERE TO FUCK SPIDERS!”. I was definitely not about to embark on any arachnid fucking that’s for sure.

While rugby league and ultra trail marathons are vastly different, rugby league is a high speed brutal collision sport, ultra trail marathons are non collision endurance events, they require similar qualities to compete in both. You have to be willing to suffer and ask your body to do things most other humans would rather not. There is nowhere to hide in either event, if you’re not 100% committed to the task at hand you will get found out, no questions. There’s only one thing left now, do the damn thing and have a red hot crack! At 07:20 we got on the transport to the race start in Chão do Galego, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at 08:00 and the mood was actually pretty relaxed generally amongst the other athletes.

The weather was pretty overcast, humid and foggy with a temperature of roughly 13 celsius/55 fahrenheit.  Then there was what I assume  was a safety briefing in Portuguese,  I didn’t get too much of it if I’m being honest as my Portuguese isn’t the best. The next thing was some music followed by a countdown and then we were off! So the trail had 3 aid stations and the first one was about 16 km away. When doing these races I like to think of them like eating a pizza, if you look at the whole thing without cutting it into slices it can seem daunting. Once you take it a slice at a time it seems much more doable, ultras are similar in my book. I started the race quite conservatively with no desire to shoot off too quickly. The terrain was pretty rocky and slippery on our first descent and we were kept on our toes quite literally. The markings for the trail were a reddish/orange colour,  not to my advantage as I’m colour blind.

Trying to distinguish orange from a mostly green backdrop proved difficult as I got lost a few times before the first aid station, but other than that I felt pretty good and slowly started to work my way through the pack. I hit the first aid station after about one hour forty five and felt pretty upbeat. I had a few salted chips, a couple of slices of ham and some dry bread and refilled one water bottle and put another electrolyte tablet in and off I went. 

So now it was time to start climbing which I’m much stronger at than descending so I  was pretty happy about this. The problem though as we climbed the visibility got poorer as there was quite a bit of low cloud which made trying to stay on the right course more of a challenge. On the descents we were passing through these beautiful old stone villages that hadn’t changed for a couple of centuries, very pretty indeed. At the time when you’re running the race it’s hard to take in all the beauty and only after you have time to reflect can you appreciate it properly.

 So coming to the second aid station at the halfway point I felt I was making good progress and was happy with the way things were going. The guys who were running the aid stations did an amazing job and couldn’t have done any more to help, without these guys the races wouldn’t happen, so a massive thank you to them. 

The third segment of the race was full of the big climbs and descents, this is what I love about the sport. The bigger the climb the better, fucking come at me!!  This is where you take the bull by the horns and rip in. Surprisingly the next 15 km passed pretty quickly it seemed,  reaching about 1000 metres above sea level at the highest point, the next thing I knew we were descending down into the third and final aid station. When I got there I noticed guys in the aid station were all very slim fit looking which meant that I was up with the pointy end of the competition. I had a very quick turnaround in this aid station as we only had about 11 km to go, refilled the water and I was off again. 

Now it would seem the race so far has gone pretty smoothly, well don’t worry  the race was about to bite back! They’re not called ultras for nothing.  By this time we had done a lot of big climbs and descents and these take a toll on your body. I came out of the aid station and pushed hard as I knew this was the last leg of the course. After 5k some aggressive cramp that set into my right quad which stayed with me until the finish line. The final 3k I felt absolutely spent, it was easily the most difficult part of the race but this is why we do these races to push our bodies and see what they have to give.

Overall I was very happy with the race, the trail was great and met some really nice guys along the way. Shoutouts to Ångelo and Jose, top blokes!

My chip time for the race was 07:08:31 with 51.3km in bank and 3010 d+. I finished 5th in my category and 12th overall. It felt really good to be competitive in the race and not doing it just to finish being the only goal. Now time to enjoy the festive period and then get back at it hard in 2024! 

Cramp never!

Electrolytes forever!

Beers very very soon!