52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 36

Filling the gaps in suburbia

Saturday, September 21, 7:02 AM

On my previous run, I used Sintra as a plug, coming back from two dream runs in Italy. Now it’s time to face suburban reality once again. 

There is a lot of painting to be done in suburbia - if I want to complete my masterpiece. As you can imagine, I have been avoiding the not-so-scenic areas.

Fortunately, having grown up in the region of Lisbon, gives me additional incentives to explore every little corner of my early morning kingdom.

I am lucky to have a lot of friends and relatives living in the area. To make a dull route fun, I just had to make sure I ran by their homes, and later on send them photos asking why I had not been invited for breakfast.

Starting in São João do Estoril

I am bummed that I am now starting my runs too late in the morning because of the sun’s increasing laziness. There are more cars and people on the streets than I am used to, and it makes my day shorter.  I start in São João do Estoril, where my grand parents used to live. I came and visited them frequently since I was a very young kid. The first thing that strikes me is how much smaller everything is than I remembered. That happens to me all the time.

Urban parks have been sprawling

I am also pleasantly surprised by the proliferation of green spaces, sad that being so dark impedes me from shooting nice photos. Time flew by, it’s only natural that a lot of changes came into place, good ones. Everything was flat in my memory, because I only covered short distances on foot back then. Not so today, we will be climbing during the first 4km. 

Another large urban park in S. João, what a pleasant surprise

There’s no way around it, it’s a boring long climb, it’s still dark and cloudy, there will be very few chances of getting engaging photos today. I am able to use the desert sidewalks but I mostly prefer to step on the asphalt. It’s time for a long mindfulness moment of meditation, remember those from ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s’? I have remained faithful to the principle of running without my AirPods and my mind travels all over the place during these runs - priceless. 

Dense urban suburb

We run by a few meadows that would be stunning with no fog and blue skies, but today I see them boring. I can imagine the amount of pressure these terrains are under. Construction lately seems to be very profitable given the speculative house pricing, every terrain in the area is extremely desirable for the right price. It makes me mad that realtors and banks highly profit from the price hike. Fortunately, that thought did not cross my mind at all during the run.

There is always a member of “the resistance” in nature

I was happily following this peculiar tartan sidewalk, as if someone had laid a running track for my event, that I missed my turn around the 3rd km. It was a funny moment because I glanced at a very steep climb on my left side and remember thinking that I was glad I did not have to tackle that. After 200 meters I found out that I was on the wrong direction and had to come back and eat the climb. 

The road is the landscape today

If you know me, I never turn down an all-you-can-eat climbing buffet - breakfast is served. It’s about 1km at an average 5.6%, not too sweet, except for the beginning part where it goes above 10%.  This area is completely unknown to me, I enjoy the feeling of exploring new things in my backyard, even if they are not too exciting. The world is really a much larger place than the convenient mobile phone maps make us feel. Sometimes it looks as if everything is at a distance of a keystroke, or a touch, but in the real world, when you have to put your feet where your mouth is, it’s a whole different story. 

Bridge to nowhere

What is a small set of pixels painting a road on my iPhone turns out to be many running steps, climbing and descending efforts, gasps for oxygen and infinite 360 views of the landscape. It will be a very sad day if we start replacing the real universe with the metaverse. I am an electrical engineer and technology lover. I like to experiment with all kinds of new technological advances, understand how they work, how they are built, and how useful they are. 

The weather is inviting everyone to remain in bed 

After the inexplicably hard climb I picked up some speed thinking I was on a long way back to lower altitudes. The “planning me” had prepared another punishing detour, as I was prepared to keep flooring it, my dictator phone imposes a sharp left turn at the 5th km. After breakfast it’s time for a mid-morning snack, 200 m @ 10% - I never stop eating. I have an infinite appetite for learning and experiencing new things. I also have an infinite admiration for humankind, even with all the wrong things that we keep doing and accepting to be done. I wish I could work in different fields every six months, tutored by a master in that field. The idea of acquiring knowledge from different fields and then mashing them up into something new is gold to me.

Even the suburbs have tasty climbs 

We are 25% into the route and already had two tasty snacks. It’s time to digest them through an approximate 1 mile long descent on my way to familiar territory. Time for a few more thoughts on technology. I had 3 different rental cars in my vacation in Italy, recent ones with all kinds of new technology - too much technology. I really fear that our reliance on so many features will cripple our reflexes, agility and numb our minds. Backing up to park a car that keeps beeping left and right about the proximity to a pillar, another car or a phantom leaf drives me out of my mind.  Let me be in charge of my own nano-risks. Do not babysit me all day long. The same is true for Apple Notes trying to guess what I am going to write next. Leave me alone! I want to write something that comes out of my thoughts, not something that came out of a can.

My favorite kind of sidewalks

We are around km 7, a third of our run, and I am about a third through reading Cal Newport’s latest book, Slow Productivity.  He is 1000% correct so far. I have not finished it, and if I have to guess, the theme will remain mostly about productivity in terms of creativity and the by-products of knowledge workers. On top of that, I think that we are so over-complicating so many things in our life that we are bringing in more stress than we are taking out. Not just because much of the new technology is flawed, only works 50% of the time and frustrates us, but mostly because we are delegating too much. By delegating too much into standardized automators (not just software) we are tending to the norm or the average, losing what makes each one of us unique, good or bad, with character. 

Older and richer neighborhoods 

I have just raced by my father-in-law’s place, my first familiar check-point. I am now in my youth territory and have no need for map or GPS. I brace myself for incoming memories of this Gen X boy. All the streets are about to shrink. Oeiras has grown from a small village to a reasonably sized town. It went from unpaved neighborhoods in the late 70s to being one of the richer municipalities in the country. It is a premium location to live, a lot has changed and everything has stayed the same. I am circling the town through a road that would be like traveling to the moon when I was a kid. 

Well deserved descent (after wich I suffered a punishing climb)

How the tables have turned, at the 8th km we face a mile long climb tagged as very steep on my child memory bank. The Gen X man swiftly erases that from the child’s head and climbs happily to the top.  A few more familiar turns and climbs, and almost knocked on a friend’s door just to wake him up, but since he is now married, his wife would not appreciate the buzzer. Getting to the 12th km is a breeze, the road has shrunk since I was a kid and I am now arriving at my teenage neighborhood. 

A 1st world elementary school

The elementary school, that I did not go to, but where I have spent countless hours playing football/soccer, has been almost fully rebuilt to a spectacular modern building. This has happened to many schools in Portugal, they have been remodeled and have excellent infrastructures, money well spent. However, and this is a big however, what good is to have excellent infrastructures and then not having money to operate them? We lack teachers, underpay many of them, as we lack staff, and maintenance budget. The crux of this problem is that as usual, construction companies and politicians set the priorities for themselves, not for taxpayers. No one ever cares about the TCO - monetary and educational. What makes me sad is that the true cost of this wrongdoing lays one or two generations ahead. The ones accountable will remain untouched, the ones affected may be lost. 

My old neighborhood with 10 times more cars

Where have all these cars come from? The number of buildings in this area has not changed since the 80’s and still the streets where a slightly older boy used to race his go-kart in the middle of the street (later to become a professional driver) are now packed with cars parked bumper-to-bumper.  The small square that we used to use for 5-on5, or 5-on-6, or X-on-Y pick-up matches is now a parking lot. Growing up I don’t recall running at all in this neighborhood. I just recall sprinting after the ball all-day-long. That is another thing that worries me about today’s generations. We grew up on the streets, running, biking, exercising all the time, that on top of sports activities at school and other organized sports. Our bodies were crafted for action since birth, naturally. 

A parking lot where our soccer field used to be

Today, while there are much better conditions to practice many different sports, not all the kids want to, and, realistically, could, if everyone wanted to. I don’t even need to talk about the billions of additional distractions at their effortless reach. I am worried. I try to set an example for my 3 children, pushing them to exercise, and I struggle. I run by my second home, by my uncle and aunt, and dash to my first home, by another uncle and aunt. The distance between them eclipsed to nothing. The time from then to now also eclipsed to nothing, like if the in-between was gone. 

Tennis court where another soccer field used to be

My mind has travelled to the twilight zone, my legs are in automatic mode, the streets have been compressed into a single point, every corner of my childhood’s town is one arm reach away. It’s hard not to have my eyes burning while writing this, my parents are no longer around. I have two finish lines today, the first is set around km 17. My younger sister, who will always be the little sister, will be waiting for me at km 17 to join me for the last 6km of today’s route - the total for the day will me slightly over 23km. From the streets where I grew up I sprint to my elementary school, through a beautiful neighborhood of single-family homes surrounded by trees that are at least my age.

On the way to school

The road used to be long and adventurous, it’s only slightly over 1km that felt like a marathon distance. We had zero knowledge of the map, our minds worked on empirically built directed graphs on top of which we applied our version of a Dijkstra’s algorithm to get from A to B. No computer was required, the only watch that we needed was the school ringing bell. Time lasted forever. Without knowing it, I had the most incredible youth I could have imagined. The dream school with the infinite corridors and two stories that felt like ten is at km 14.  

My elementary school, 100 times smaller than I remembered

I am late to meet my sister. I subtracted 6km from 21 instead of the 23km - I never like to be late for anything. Luckily, Huffman’s compression has been running on these streets. What felt like requiring a passport to visit back when I was a kid, is less than 3 kms away.  On my half marathon time scale that is peanuts. What joy from heaven it is to run through my childhood streets. Not that I have not been coming here frequently, but today, I came here with a purpose, on my half marathons voyage, it felt different, it feels different to write about - these chopped onions are bothering my eyes.

 On the way to the 1st finish line

After running 3km that felt like 300m, I arrive in the city center of Carcavelos. A town connected to Oeiras and the others around it. A town that also remained the same while changing a lot. Where the generation of my parents still lives and enjoys housing that our kids will have a hard time to enjoy.  My sister is waiting for me by a café / pastry spot that we have now baptized as the Solstice Café. For the last two years I have convinced my wife, kids, sisters, nephews and in-laws to go for a walk/run but the ocean at the turn of the summer solstice. I managed to get everyone out of bed early enough to go and watch the first sunrise of the summer. After that event we all came to this café for a nice breakfast. I hope we can keep this recent tradition for many years.

Look! I am on a photograph, arriving in Carcavelos town center

I crossed my first finish line.  Sometimes, running is more of a mind effort than a physical effort. I tuned myself to meet my sister and it felt strange when I got to her. It looked as if I had finished and was going to start a new run. I was feeling strong and could have easily pushed through the last 6km but it was time to take care of my little sister. She has a 3 year old kid that stopped her running for the last 3 years. She is slowly returning and I did not want her to push too much. 

On the way to Parede

I told her genuinely that we would be going mostly on flat terrain until the end of the run. As we progressed to the next town in line, Parede, suddenly I remembered that I had already gone through that road on stage 9 (I looked it up). Suddenly I had to check my plan on the map and had bad news for my sister. That flat terrain could not be farther from the truth. We would have to tackle the highest hill that existed in the area, climbing for around 1.2km at a respectable rate. Sorry sis, I did not do it on purpose (as a normal Gen X brother would back then). 

My poor sister had no idea of the climb that I had picked for us (now enjoying the way down)

She did well, we progressed slowly but surely and arrived at the top in no time. They laid a red carpet for our descent around the 20.4km. We are heading back to our grandparents town and exploring some of the roads where our parents used to drive us. We are running through an unimaginable distance when we were kids, there’s no way anyone would do that on foot.

Autumn has arrived

In reality, Huffman did its work. Everything is now much smaller, but kept all the vivid details. Like any good lossless algorithm, memories keep unfolding in a pristine lossless mode. Even if the lossless is more due to our imperfect brain memory instead of the rigorous mathematics of the algorithm. After all, life tastes much better if it remains under our control, human, instead of driven by training wheels on a predictable path set by an automata. 

Me in the middle of the road by the finish line (just for the photo).

Another run full of memories, all good, because those are the only ones that we should keep.

Run, run wild, run free, run for fun, run because you can.

Enjoy your runs!

-APF

Route and profile as recorded by Strava