52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 24
Salamanca - Universidad
Saturday, June 29, 6:36 AM
Salamanca University is considered the 3rd oldest in the world. Bologna being the 1st and Oxford the 2nd. University cities are special and Salamanca is a pearl.
Four years ago, we came running with our son to drop him here at the university to study medicine. The city was a remarkable surprise. I have run here several times, including some half marathons so I had been anxiously waiting to score one of my 52W52HM runs here.
A long drive last night, through the middle of a scary thunderstorm, and a rough short night of sleep, were no match for my enthusiasm. I already had all the photos developed in my head, and was just a little bummed that the sky would not be the Salamanca sierra-blue that fills the pictures with that extra punch.
Salamanca is at an elevation of 802 m (2631 ft), quite a difference from my sea level.
I start the run on the northwest side of the city, a residential area where it’s not impossible to park for free (parking is a challenge in the core of the city).
Apart from the grey anatomy of the sky, the temperature was run-perfect, a rarity during the summer when usually the weather tends to be febrile.
Salamanca has perfect running conditions, it is an absolute joy to run in this city, specially this early in the morning. I have been a good student and knew most of my route by heart. The 1st mile is an easy descent to the river. The sidewalks are wide, perfectly paved and there are plenty of bike lanes.
As usual, I take ownership of the city. All the students went home for their summer vacations and the locals are still asleep. There are several bridges crossing the Tormes river, and all of them provide stunning views of the river and the city.
There are many sports fields and running lanes along the south margin of the river with breathtaking views to the city. Salamanca is running heaven.
The more I think about it, the more I realize on how special it is to be able to take a degree at the University. We are given the opportunity to learn so much in so many fields in such a short period of time. I wish I could go back and take my course again with all the life learning that I now have.
As students, the course might look like an uphill marathon with no end in sight. Every exam season pounds like a steep uphill, no matter how much you have trained, it is always hard. Every deadline approaches as fast as race day. Looking back, time flew by as fast as a 400m run around the track.
We are served an amazing cake of knowledge, a very large one, and we have to eat it all, one slice at a time. For the lucky ones, it is an absolutely amazing time to live through. Just like running through this city,
University towns, where all kinds of fields are taught, medicine, law, engineering, and business, are perfect mixes for those who will be pushing the world forward. They just don’t know it then. You are training for a decathlon.
I forgot that I was running my haf marathon. So many dreams and memories come to my mind. It is a wonderful feeling to be able to zoom at a fast pace in Zone 2. I am loving to be in the best shape of my life and hope not to lose it ever again.
Please, do the same for yourself. Go out and live the days right from the beginning. It really does not matter how fast you go, how far you go, just go, one day at a time. Please go.
At km 2.7, we cross the second bridge to get back to the north shore. The view to the city is nice, but we are still focused on the river bed. The terrain is pretty flat and easy, the air gets pushed into our lungs, we don’t even have breath, the landscape is breathing for us.
I am grateful for this gift of anaesthesia-assisted breathing from the city, because it’s not everyday that we get to cross a bridge that is so old that we can only estimate that it was built around 27 B. C.-14 D. C. - breathtaking and mind blowing.
As I write and look at the lonely pictures I get chills, good ones. I never feel lonely during my runs, trust me. I absolutely soak in everything around me and have been slowly learning to observe every km of my run. This feels like one of the best decisions that I have ever taken.
We are only at km 3.6 and already have more great photos than we can share, even with the sun hiding from us. It’s going to be another flat 1km following the margin of the Tormes until our next bridge crossing.
To our left daylight is slowly uncovering superb views of Salamanca. These have to be the easiest 10km ever. I am not stopping for pictures, even with poor light conditions any fool with a camera passes this exam.
The next bridge on the map is not for crossing, it is for admiring from all the different angles as we run under it. These streets, gardens, running and bike lanes are all kept in impeccable state.
It’s easy to understand why given the incredible number of cleaning people that I encountered working this early in the morning. One of the greatest lessons that I have learned from a teacher in high-school was on how keeping things clean encourages other people to do the same. He must have taken classes in Salamanca.
Today I wanted to run on a park that I had not visited before, Parque Jesuitas, and diverted my run to do so. Bad luck, the park was closed this early in the morning. It looked promising seen from the outside. I will be back,
I am dying to get to old town Salamanca but I still have to put on some miles before getting the prize. The architecture in Salamanca is impressive. Simple but hardly boring. Very distinct.
We are now around the 8th km and are getting to the most interesting chapters of our main subject. We take a back street to get to the absolutely gorgeous Convent of San Esteban.
It is impossible to run more than a couple of hundred meters without finding an interesting building, street, stairs or park.
Time to go up on of the main avenues, Gran Via (just like in Madrid). This will lead us to the higher areas of Salamanca, in the North. Still, it is a very easy climb.
Salamanca is not a very large city, it has the perfect size for students to be able to do just about everything walking. We navigate some of the main avenues close by the train station (that can hop us in no time to Madrid) all the way to the outskirts of the city.
Sidewalks in Salamanca also have their own character and above all are wide and smooth (slippery when wet though). I remain impressed by the simple architecture of the residential buildings holding a consistent look. We get to the highest point of our run just around the halfway point.
I am readier than ever to go to the downtown area, skimming briefly by the bull fighting arena, we find our way to the core of the city.
The heart of Salamanca has to be Plaza Mayor, where all the blood veins and arteries lead to. We enter the aorta Calle de Zamora with the simple church Iglesia de San Marcos.
We flow trough the street like the blood on a healthy young kid. This artery is filled with fresh air, we can feel it on our face as we find our way to the left ventricle of Plaza Mayor.
We can hear the heart pounding as we approach the center of the plaza. It is empty of people but filled with soul.
Plaza Mayor of Salamanca is still sleeping, but not for long, the heart is just resting getting ready for another busy day.
If Calle de Zamora is the aorta, Calle Toro will have to be the superior vena cava, just as important, we explore its path all the way to the north and then come back through the right and left pulmonary arteries, Calle Pozo Amarillo.
This section really happened in a heart beat. We are 10 miles in our run and I am a little sad that we are only 5km away from the end.
We run by the central market, not as impressive as the ones in Madrid, but quite an experience to visit. I hope they manage to keep it operating. Fresh ocean fish 250 km away from the ocean is quite a feat.
If you were impressed by the main arteries and veins, get ready to be thrilled with all the remaining capillarities of our run. At the 17th km, we visit the unique Catedral de Salamanca. We did get a small challenging ramp around the cathedral, something to get our VO2max going.
From now on it will be hard to take a wrong turn in our journey. I am still amazed looking at my pictures on how empty the streets were, it does not look real. I feel like a kid exploring all the Christmas gifts once again.
In a few hours, the contrast will be an unbelievable. The streets will be packed with. people, there will be chairs and tables in the middle of the “roads” with people eating, drinking and having fun, the Spanish way.
These buildings have to be a source of inspiration for all the students. They convey a sense of knowledge, like the stones are here to teach us what they have learned over many their many centuries of existence.
Today they are telling us to keep moving with the invisible blood flow carrying the oxygen for us to enjoy. I now know the story of many of these buildings, where the libraries are, student residencies, colleges, this city is alive.
It is impossible not to romance around these streets. It is impossible not to dream about amazing things that might have happened, that have happend, and that are bound to happen again.
These have to be the longest 3km of any of my runs. Not because they were hard, on the contrary, the were all too easy. They were long because of all of the stories that these places have told me and the ones that they made me dream of.
Get ready to be caught in a space-time Möbius strip, where you can find similarities in all our journeys, and yet see them as distinct, where go from one block to the other, seem to be back where we started and still know we have move forward.
Get ready to feel your feet lifted of the ground, effortlessly roaming through this enchanted city center, alone and yet feeling a strange warm feeling from the cold stones crafted by artisans.
Get ready to relive the very same feeling, just by magically looking at the photos that you took. Having a strange feeling that you were alone with your thoughts, listening to your breathing, and opening your eyes 360 degrees around you.
It’s the 19th km and we head to the final section of our run, back to the river side to pay homage to what brought me here. As I sit alone at night writing these words about my run I remain baffled by the emptiness of these beautiful streets.
Salamanca is the capital of an important province in Spain, and has a medical care center grounded on the University Hospital that is well known and impresses me. I am thankful to Spain for welcoming my son into the university here.
After our quick run by the hospital (not that way), we set course for the main university campus for the Facultad de Medicina. Again, we are gifted with a nice bike/run lane, plenty of green and a special harmony surrounding all the area.
It is an absolute privilege to be able to study in this city, in this university and in this country.
Maintaining a reputation for so many centuries alone is something to look up to.
It’s one thing to get into shape for specific goal. It’s a total different story being in shape as a way of living. Salamanca seems to have kept its shape for several centuries now. And that is no small feat.
Our run comes to an end, a lot faster and effortless than we expected.
We did not have the sun, but Salamanca did all the shining.
It was so smooth… Hasta la vista Salamanca
Enjoy your runs!
-APF
PS: I came here to pick up my son and empty his house. He will be going to Florence - Italy for his 5th year in the University, and so will one of our 52W52HM in September.
