52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 3
Stage 3 - Carcavelos - Lisbon
What was I thinking?
For many years in our early lives, we are guided by milestones with well-defined goals: the first years in school, high school, college, learning to swim, soccer, football, basketball, and other “expected skills” that society, family, and local cultures slowly built over the course of many years. After these milestones, hopefully, comes work, then family, and eventually a routine, which by no means should be considered lesser. However, sometimes, for some, it feels as though we are missing some kind of beacon, a finish line to cross, until the next race begins. And that is how I feel.
Last year was all about beating my previous record for total kilometers ran in one year. This year, I came up with the 52/52 challenge. What was I thinking?
Run 3 - Carcavelos - Lisbon
February 3rd, 7:40 am (2 minutes before sunrise)
The story of this run began the night before, celebrating one of my sister’s 50th birthday, until 3 AM, with the beat of some of the best Gen X songs. The run was “planned” for 7 AM. Not a good start, but a good test of my willpower.
With so little sleep, the morning started with a race against the clock. I wanted to beat the sunrise. Part of the allure of my half marathons lies in soaking in the breathtaking sunrises.
My run starts at the Praia de Carcavelos (Carcavelos beach), a wonderful reasonably sized beach with very good infrastructures, a surfers’ magnet, expectedly crowded in summer time, but seems to always have room for one extra person.
It’s the middle of the winter, 10 C, chilly before the sun makes its ascent, but with a clear blue sky setting up as a scenery for my run. Hardly a normal winter, if we can still talk about such thing as a normal weather patterns.
Today’s running path is gorgeous, and full of Portuguese history. It’s an easy flat run with a “natural” boardwalk track as perfect as it can get,
It’s not a loop, which means that at the end you need to catch the train back (bring money along) or have someone waiting to give you a ride. I highly recommend catching the train back and enjoying the complete scenery one second time.
It’s early in the morning and the streets are mostly empty. Mid-morning, with such good weather, they will become too crowded for my liking.
The sun is not up yet, the wind is a little bit chilly, so I begin my run immediately not quite from where I had planned. I did not want to miss a bit of the sunrise spectacle that was about to unfold.
The boardwalk is quite wide and well-paved, offering no excuses for moving at a good pace.
The moon looked superb too, everything was aligned for a great run.
At the eastern end of the beach we reach the first and largest fortress of our run. This one is the official residence of the Minister of Defense and it looks really cool.
At this end of the beach there are two restaurant/bars that are excellent spots for sunbathing with a beer in hand and watch sunsets on repeat.
Along a brief stretch of the run we navigate through the parking lot that, at this time of the day, will be entirely vacant, swiftly leading to a a new “trail-head”.
Not many years ago, a visionary college built a new campus right by this beach. Universidade Nova Business School, was already well ranked for its curriculum. I am confident that they will keep or improve their status with this dream location. If I were to be a student here, however, it would be hard to keep my focus on classes. The beachfront looks to be too much of a temptation.
We reach the second beach of our run, Praia da Torre (I will stop counting in a while), as most beaches, it is served by good restaurantes, bars and coffee spots. There is a a spectacular whale diving into the sidewalk that is always a great photo spot. I am not stopping for the perfect picture. I did not have to try too hard to get a good one.
Next, its time for a small descent, probably the only real slope during the whole run and and famous ascent for the local Strava beginners.
We get down to the fine Marina de Oeiras, also a good spot for brunches, lunches and vitamine D. Still feeling hungry and battered from last night, I dream of a butter croissant, but luckily everything is still closed.
The sun is slowly rising above the horizon, and the light is just phenomenal. Getting the phone out of my pocket is starting to be more tiring than running. The ocean breeze is purifying. My 3.5 hours of sleep are no longer in my head. The running scenery today is epic.
The pavement is perfect, there is beauty all over the place, light, shadow, I feel that the only part of me that is getting tired are the whole 5 senses. I can feel the taste of the remaining long run ahead of me. It has only been a little over 2 km.
We get to beach number 3 at the 3rd km. Santo Amaro de Oeiras, another good size beach, not as nice as Carcavelos. I would set this as the border where the river Tejo meets the Atlantic Ocean, but that’s just my opinion. Again, the beach is empty but not for long. This track is butter smooth, perfect for roller blades, skates and recreational biking.
Oeiras is one of the main villages in the suburbs of Lisbon. It is known to have multiple business parks that have attracted many well known international corporations. It is a great place to live, but where housing has become way too expensive.
Lot’s of young and old people, later in the day, will roam along this beach, and the place becomes full of life. Right now, it’s all mine.
If you are too sensitive to sunlight, we will keep going against the sun, so bring your running sunglasses with you. The 4th beach comes at the 5th km. With zero wind and close to perfect temperature, it’s going to be a breeze to get there.
At a distance one can see the Bugio lighthouse, on a rock in the middle of the Ocean/River. This lighthouse is like the eyes of the Mona Lisa.
Getting to Paço d’Arcos beach, at km 5, is where our privileged track gets interrupted. We have to climb up a ramp or stairs all the way up to the sidewalk by the scenic road, Marginal. From here, up to km 7, we will be on the sidewalk. This road used to be very dangerous, and, I confess, that still today, I am uncomfortable of running in the sidewalk. But I am biased from the years of yore. There are many speed controlling traffic lights, and this early in the morning, all the “drunk” drivers have already crashed into their beds. The road is mostly empty. Still, always run aware of your surroundings.
The scenery keeps shining under the eye of the sun, the river and the ocean stretch forever. Already in sight, our versions of the Golden Gate and Christ the Redeemer. We will get there in a few kms.
At the 7th km, it is time to go down from the sidewalk to the safety of the Forte de São Bruno, another fortress (we passed a few until we got here). We are back to sea level, away from exausts. Oh, and we are again by another beach. I stopped counting a few small ones on the way here.
Off the sidewalk into the perfect running track again, now with the train track right beside us. Yes, the train ride goes along the coast, just like the road, and it is superb.
Unfortunately, by the end of km 9, the track is interrupted by a river, and we need to get back on the sidewalk for about 200 meters to cross to the other side. The jetstream in the sky never cease to amaze me.
It’s now a long straight with our feet almost touching the water. The “Golden Gate” bridge is getting bigger, but, slowly, just like monitoring a flightpath while crossing the Atlantic for 6 hours.
In sight we have a leaning building, our best shot at the leaning tower of Pisa, an odd looking building that is the control tower for the ships coming in and out of the river mouth. We get there close to km 12, right at the entrance of Lisbon.
A little futher down the road, right at km 13, my 1st salute, 🫡, to a research center on the leading edge of pancreatic cancer research. It is a really cool looking building filled with smart people working their best to bring hope to a terrible disease.
From now on, it will be a sequence of notable spots, too many for me to take photos, and for you to take in. This post is already too long and, it is time for some filtering.
Not 500 meters have passed, and I am already on my 2nd salute, 🫡, a monument to honor Portuguese soldiers that fought for their country. “War is a place where the young kill one another without knowing or hating each other, because of the decision of old people who know and hate each other, without killing each other." - Erich Hartmann
Suprisingly, not withstanding our purported evolution as a species, this saying lives on when it should be the one to die.
Sprint on to the next monument around the corner, the iconic Tower of Belém. What can one say, it’s a Lisbon Postcard and a must see.
Approximatelly 100 meters fly by, and on the left we can admire the statue that celebrates two brave lunatics that flew across the South Atlantic for the 1st time. My 3rd and last salute of the morning.
I also stopped counting the Marinas. You will have to go around a few, and they are always beautiful to observe. By now, there are many runners out.
We are getting to km 14.5, and our slow bridge is getting bigger and bigger. It is now notorious that it’s not the Golden Gate. We could not just copy one bridge and came up with a crossover between the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge. The lower deck, instead of a 6 lane road, is a railway track. The bridge is called Ponte 25 de Abril, its longer than the Golden Gate but not as tall. Padrão dos Descobrimentos is another postcard from Lisbon that celebrates the Portuguese endeauvers across the Ocean around the 1500s
There are only 6km remaining and way too many things to look at. The streets are packed with artwork, statues and many buildings filled with history. The run keeps going along the river. Don’t get too distracted or you might end up in the water. On the left, around 15.5 km, there is a museum built inside an early electrical power plant. It is now bordered by an impressive new building, the Museum of Architecture and Technology, maat. I personaly would have liked this building to be further away from the old power plant.
You can walk on top of the ‘maat’ building, and I have already seen some runners using it for some HIIT workouts.
Fast forward to the bridge at km 17, a marvellous engineering feat, back then when there were no computers. It’s hard for someone today to try and figure out on earth could such complex projects come to life. The Tejo river is incredibly wide, and further up the river, there is the Vasco da Gama. That bridge crosses the river with a length close to 16km. If I was the one designing, it would have to be 21.0975 km ;)
It’s roughly 4km to the end of my adventure, and my legs are reminding me of my short night of sleep. From here to the finish line, we will cross many restaurants, bars and coffee shops. A good chunk of the city night life starts after crossing (under) the bridge. All is quiet, this early in the morning, but this is where most of the jams take place.
Just follow the river all the way to the train station. All the bars are closed, there is no chance of getting off track now.
The run finishes very close to the train station. It’s time to grab my favorite drink after a run, just as I am getting inside the train, to head back to the starting line.
Água das Pedras is one of few naturally sparking waters, and I love it, but not everyone does.
Below is the route as recorded by Strava.
I don’t know what I was thinking when I set myself this 52 HM challenge. I know now that I was thinking with the right area of my brain and heart. This run was epic, even if starting tired from a sleepless night.
Enjoy our runs!
APF
PS: Gen X will have recognized most of the song captions in the photos. To the younger ones I suggest adding them to your next running playlist. They are just as epic as this run.
Riding the train back
Again, lovely ride! …and nice pictures!