52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 43
Parque Natural da Arrábida
Saturday, November 2, 7:11 AM, 2024
Few will know that many scenes from the 1969 James Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the sixth in the series, were shot in Portugal. It is a peculiar movie in the series. Of note, spoiler alert, James Bond gets married and his wife dies in Serra da Arrábida. Running short on spots to paint on the map, I would have to start venturing further away from home, and Serra da Arrábida, a protected natural park 40 km south of Lisbon, was high on my list. As with the Bond movie, this would be a different run in my season. And, if I were going to go into 007 land, I would have to take my Bond girl along with me. It did not take much to convince my dear wife TF to join me for an epic run in Serra da Arrábida.
Crossing the same bridge that 007 crossed in 1969, let the movies begin.
Even if it’s 1969, luckily for TF, Q has supplied the 007 running fans with an advanced electric mountain bike to help TF follow me during my run. We arrive at the main road leading to the Portinho da Arrábida beach right at sunrise and already are drowning in the views over the horizon. I planned the starting point and the route to get the best possible lighting for the photos and this time I nailed it. An added bonus of having my wife with me is that she would shoot additional photos, with a better camera and with plenty of spare time. With the e-bike she could easily catch me all the time. This also means that I would get at least double the number of photos that I usually shoot including some of me running. I found it hard to discard photos so, this will be a lot more pictorial than usual. There’s always a lot of shooting going around on 007 movies after all.
A different kind of Sunbeam from “Dr No’s” Alpine
Serra da Arrábida is very similar in size to Sintra and I knew there was going to be a lot of climbing right from the start. And so it began, a massive climb for 3km until we would get back on the main road. All the running today would be done on the road, with very little shoulders. Arrábida is remote enough that I could expect there to be close to zero traffic this time of the year, I was right. Definitely, this cannot be done during summer or spring time when this becomes a very busy region.
In a certain way, TF came “From Russia with Love” (TF’s first name is of Russian origin)
It is hard to describe how fresh the air felt. We could have not asked for more perfect weather than what we got. Q’s ebike has three pedal assistance settings. Eco, trail and boost. The climb is hard enough that my wife quickly went into boost mode. As for 007, he will have to resort to his best climbing abilities with no tricks. We head SW, with the sun slowly following us, in wonder, as the landscape unfolds before our eyes.
No lesser than Furka Pass from “Goldfinger”
I had driven many times through these roads and even been riding my mountain bike in the area (with temperatures below zero as it does get very cold here during winter time). Running through these roads is a completely different plot. The landscape becomes infinite and slowly changes as we hop along the away. Seeing the road vanish far out in the distance makes it look like an impossible task but it’s just like river water on a pebble, takes its time but comes out smooth and beautiful.
Deafening silence, like from a “Thunderball”
We are climbing fast, and sometimes it pays to look back. The view we are leaving behind is astounding too. It’s always hard to capture that early morning ocean mist, and the views always seem to become trapped in front of your focal point (even if you are using Q’s super wide camera angle). That’s why landscape photography is an art. TF is riding out of my sight and I am not comfortable with it. Interesting how I have zero worries about myself, alone in the middle of nowhere, but as soon as I lose sight of TF for a few seconds I don’t like it.
“You only live Twice” - soak the view in front and behind you.
It’s a parabolic climbing profile with the ascent rate hitting above 15% and the last km averaging 10%. My favorite kind of warm up. I climbed at a reasonable pace, “trying” to keep up the TF. It’s a hard climb, but so refreshing. The mix of air from the mountains and the ocean penetrates deep inside my lungs, and has me craving for more as I write. I can’t stop laughing as I am cruising on the red line and see a warning for a stop sign 100 meters ahead, just in case I run through it.
Coming to “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” road
We are at the 3rd km, riding on flatter terrain, heading northeast and enjoying the higher altitude. My phone has been shooting faster than Bond’s Walther PPK gun. I see a target at every glance. Another reason I am loving this route is because it is simple to navigate just by following the main road. It makes it a lot easier to keep a steady pace and freely enjoy the view.
“Diamonds are Forever”, as is TF riding in the sunrise
The sun has been taking its time on the climb too, and has planned to present us with magnificent light. We have entered the road leading to the Arrábida convent, tragically the road where Tracy, James Bond’s wife would be shot to die by the end of the movie. TF is cruising ahead of me and I am on hot pursuit squeaking the rubber of my shoes. The only exhaust is in the work exhaustion after the brutal climb.
“Live and Let Die”, that’s the sun’s power and role
For the next 2 kms we will have a few skirmishes with small hills before heading to the final battle with the villain. Bond always loves to have his small altercations at the local bars. Today I am sipping superb views instead of the usual Shaken Martini.
“The Man with the Golden Gun”, I keep on shooting, photographs…
Besides Q’s ultimate driving machine, TF is carrying a superior sniper phone with a 5x camera. She has more time and is using the additional sniper advantage to zoom in the landscape. At a distance we can see the spectacular Tróia Peninsula and the beach stretching all the way to the Sines Cape. This is one of the longest contiguous beaches in the world, close to 63 km (I put in that record in Wikipedia). There is an official run on that beach every year, 43km - Ultra Maratona Atlântica Melides-Tróia.
“The Spy Who Loved Me”, spying on the Tróia Peninsula, that I love back
There was a period in my life where for about 6 months I was flying every week on a Beechcraft 1900 from Lisbon to Casablanca. I would seat on the left side of the plane, on the 1st seat just behind the pilot cabin (who mostly travelled with the door open). I marveled at the view of this beach as much as I did observing all the piloting procedures. That beach is where this 007 and his girl TF, have spent some the most memorable beach days, alone and with extended family.
“Moonraker”
This stretch of road is very pleasant, just as if flying at cruising altitude with a rush of fresh air blowing in my face. The road has been completely empty and safe. TF and I take turns leading. I had not seen the profile in detail and assumed at this point that it would be a gentle climb to the top, which in my mind should not be too far away.
“For Your Eyes Only”, from Tróia to Sines on the far right
The winding road is a pearl. This is definitely gold for road bikers. The scale of the Arrábida mountains never ceases to impress, and the way it grows up to the last moment when they dive into the ocean is breathtaking. On cold clear winter days, when we get razor sharp visibility, Arrábida becomes quite a view from Sintra when I am out mountain biking. They are sister mountain ranges.
“The Living Daylights”
The road seems to stretch to infinity above the horizon. The beaches down below and the perfectly flat ocean are to drool for. We are approaching the Arrábida Convent and a few buildings gently sprout through the middle of the vegetation. Just the right amount of salt for the perfect cooking. Any of these buildings is a worthy hiding place for a 007 villain. Very far in the distance we can see some telecom towers that we will have to run by. They seem to be on the other side of the world. Amazing what the human body is capable of.
“A View to a Kill”
As I make the turn by the 5th km, I start to realize that I have Mount Everest to climb ahead of me. We will be climbing for the next 1.7km at a 10% average grade. Arrábida is full of enchantments like Sintra. They lure you slowly into these climbing traps. Love it.
“Licence to Kill” from beauty
As usual, the phone photos flatten the road. TF is calmly pedaling along while I have to go into a lower gear to pull my self up the mountain. I have plenty of anesthesia from the landscape to move me through the pain happily. Today I have an extra beauty focus moving on the road.
“GoldenEye” on TF
I was on a completely different script from the today’s movie. I had not seen this vertical wall on my lines. I welcomed it but had to dig deep. All of a sudden it feels like I am back on the Beechcraft flying at a reasonable altitude. The air is not thin but my lungs are bursting. We are arriving at the Arrábida convent around the 6th km.
“Tomorrow Never Dies”, neither do I
The view to the Convent is again fabulous, as is the road cutting through the mountain. I still have a long way to go, and at this point have now idea how much longer the climb would last. I feel small and powerful at the same time. I glance at the route I have planned on the map and realize that I have a huge distance to cover still.
“The World Is Not Enough” for the beauty around the Convent
Looking back makes me feel proud of what I have accomplished so far, up to par with Arrábida’s mountains. Looking at the pictures I realize how incredibly lucky I was with the weather conditions. I have never visited the convent from the 16th century.
I will have to “Die Another Day”
It’s hard to discard pictures today. I love the way the road encircles the hills one after the other. It is a notorious engineering achievement and yet shows how insignificant our scale is. Lately nature has been reminding us of that. We have been altering landscape and even the course of rivers as we please only to be reminded abruptly that they are that way for a reason. And that reason has normally stood the passage of thousands of years.
“Casino Royal” jackpot view
It’s hard for me today to keep the weapon in the holster. I shoot at will and am loaded with Infinite friendly bullets. The climb keeps on giving, this km is as long as the 1st one (always the longest in case you don’t remember).
“Quantum of Solace”
We are approaching the danger area where 007’s enemies have hit last time. Today, fortunately the road remains desert and there are no obvious hiding places for any surprise strikes. That’s another great aspect of the route. Even though we are going in the middle of a road that has very small shoulders, it is quite open, and we can see many meters ahead which makes me feel completely safe.
The winding road of “Octopussy”
Finally, we arrive and take a shot (without knowing), pretty close to the exact spot where 007 stops with Tracy to remove wedding flowers from the top of their car. Even though they are in Portugal, Bond is driving a right hand wheel, and stops on the wrong side of the road (well, they do stop by the view). TF is now ahead of me, safely in shooting position, by the next vista point. We are only catching the good guys today.
Where Tracy dies on Bond’s arms
We are finally at the top, around km 7.2 and discover an amazing spot for a 007 movie. A paragliding take off ramp that is definitely a spot where your secret agent would jump from using Q’s ebike to catch a villain flying on a boat with wings. My imagination fed by thin air. I distinctly remember approaching the start of the ramp and, believe it, tripping. That was enough to get an adrenaline shot to the stomach and get me moving out of there pretty quickly.
“Skyfall”
We are now following a crest in the mountain and can peek to the north, viewing all the way to Lisbon and Sintra. From here we will be going more or less flat for one km and then begin our big descent. It is a radical change from the past kms, a long straight with views to the north and the south.
Arrábida’s version of “Spectre” Obertilliach
It’s time to cross another Atlantic Ocean, where you can see sea forever and it seems that you never move from the same place.I had forgotten that today’s run was going to be slightly longer than usual. There were no possible shortcuts to do my desired loop so the total distance would be closer to 25.5 km with almost 600m of climbing - no picnic today.
“No Time to Die”
Q’s ebike range was laughing with the challenge. TF was comfortably squeezing all the juice that she desired out of that battery. It’s a mountain ebike, so the silky road was a joke for the machine.
“Never say Never Again” to an adventure with TF
We are very close to the highest point in the area so it’s only natural that the moisture from the ocean colliding with northern winds gives us some neat cloud formations at ground level. The mountain seems to be boiling for us, it was a very beautiful sight because it was not static. It was running along my run.
Touching the clouds at the top
At this point the view to the north, even without the ocean, becomes just as impressive as the one to the south. We can see how massive the mountain range is and that there is so much more to explore. I have been on some of those northern trails on my mountain bike and it was tough.
A Vista Point to the north
During my university, one of the subjects involved making a detailed calculation of a Microwave Link. There were multiple variants of the same problem but they frequently had Arrábida as either an end point or a mid-point to be used to connect lower stations north and south. It’s easy to understand why running by these towers. You have a great view in every direction.
Telecom Paradise
We keep increasing the descent rate and I have an extraordinary feeling of being again inside that Beechcraft on the way to Casa. We get an extraordinary bird’s-eye view of the beach going from Tróia all the way to the Cape of Sines. The light is not in our favor now and I do want to come back with lighting from the afternoon. It should look glorious. We are around the 10th km, not even halfway!
Beechcraft descending to the Tróia Peninsula
Down below there are many hidden beaches that we are set to explore later in the run. The water is starting to take its emerald color that will blow our mind later on. Just like many 007 movies, there is a scene that moves the action to paradise. We never left!
Sand bank for a wild boat chase
The plane is making a fantastic glide with the wind and we can clearly see the large mouth of the River Sado. A protected area that is separated from the ocean by the Tróia Peninsula. From here the land looks frail and that could be easily engulfed by the Ocean. Down there it truly is paradise. The beach and the resorts are Bond-worthy.
Hard to convey the real feeling of this descent
We are approaching the city of Setúbal, an industrial area, and even though we are still in the protected space of the Arrábida park, there is a large cement factory operating right inside the perimeter crunching through the mountain to extract the rocks required for their operation. I have so many questions. I am by no means an environmental fundamentalist. I find it so wrong that this operation continues…
The city of Setúbal
At the 13th km, we are really living inside a Bond movie. There are some abandoned military installations, with canons, weapons storage, a setting out of a movie. Of course there are plenty of graffiti, and the inside of the buildings looks creepy. I kept running around some of the buildings but then found some stairs and TF could not follow me so it felt wise to abandon the exploration. Who knows we would find Bond’s villain hiding.
Abandoned military area. TF was afraid and wouldn’t let me explore the place
And if the abandoned military infrastructure was the villain hideout, his workers have to be using this creepy cement factory to manufacture some kind of evil powder that is to be used to attack world peace in some kind of way. It seriously felt like being in a 007 movie. We could hear all the sounds of the factory in operation, but could hardly see anyone. Just like all the bad guys infrastructures from Ian Fleming’s imagination.
A cement factory right in the middle of a protected natural area. If this is not the villain hiding spot, where could it be?
I have now been descending for almost 10km. I never thought I would get tired of doing it, but I was eager to get to the coastal area and out of bad guy’s land. Today’s movie script would have us now follow 5km of road along the beach front, just as if Bond had landed in the Caribbean.
Heading to the beachfront
If you have been doing the math, 5km along the coast will takes us past the 21km mark. Remember, today we will not end within the HM metrics. The cherry on top of the cake will be a 3km ascent after the 21st km. The thought of it was now starting to hurt.
Looking towards the Tróia Peninsula now at sea level
The road is mostly closed. During the summer, this area is flooded with beachgoers. It has been many years since I had driven here and apparently you can no longer do it. Just runners :)
Approaching one of the several tunnels
The art work inside the tunnels is evocative of the ocean and I can’t say I did not like it.
The artwork thankfully has been spared from graffiti
The ride takes us along a number of beaches that are breathtaking. The color of the water, the sand, and the scattered rocks, it’s movie-picture-perfect.
The emerald waters start glowing
The tunnels have been decorated to try and blending them with the atmosphere of the area. They do a good job, but not enough. These roads should not be here, there was a time when they might have made sense, but today they do not. Me, being a fundamentalist.
Arrábida tunnels
It sure feels that we have moved to the final scenes in the Bond movie. By now James is sipping a cocktail and his favorite Bond girl is about to show up coming out of the water.
No filters
I get distracted and infatuated with the view, but my body reminds me that I have been hammered and still face a challenging climb ahead.
Paradise
I sure would accept breakfast on the beach now. I am about to cross the 20k mark and there is still 5 hard km to go.
Bond land
Arrábida now is just showing off, the trees and the soft foliage on the ground pampering my feet are too much. Am I hallucinating? I know Arrábida’s beauty well, but my jaw is now on the ground.
Tired but not tired
I am glad that the temperature is fresh and not inviting for a swim. The water from up here looks irresistible.
Tempting
These beaches stretch for many kms, way beyond the view over the horizon all the way to Sesimbra. We are getting closer to Portinho da Arrábida, our starting point.
Arrábida beauty, now from below
It's incredible how it feels like we have jumped into a portal and arrived on the other side of the planet in the middle of the Pacific. I was not expecting this gift from Q.
Not so different from Hawaii
Time to say goodbye to the beachfront and face my climbing nemesis. I am about to grind through some 10% grade climbs after having completed the half marathon distance (which included more than 500m of ascent already). Today, I was not soft on myself! It must have been that I wanted to show off to my TF girl?
Let the climbing begin
Beaches keep sprouting around every corner, but my vision is now tunneling. I need to focus on the finish line, as Arrábida is starting to eat me alive.
Some of us can rest
But Arrábida shows no mercy, and serves me sweet with suffering. I can’t complain, just be grateful of the tremendous luck that I had today in every way.
It’s just one beautiful beach after another
I am now on my final climb to infinity surrounded by some beautiful walls that blend in perfectly with the landscape.
Another Infinite climb
I already can see the final credits creeping in from the bottom of the screen. I am lacking fuel, food and fluids.
In a movie, the agent should now be down there
The finish line arrives by the Portinho de Arrábida beach. A must-visit.
Portinho da Arrábida beach
This has been an epic run in one of the most beautiful areas of Portugal. I was going to write that it rivaled my beloved Sintra, but I think it complements it. They are sisters.
What a lucky day, I could not have been happier to share it with TF.
Enjoy your runs !
-APF
Elevation gain: 566 m / 1856 ft
PS: Driving back, I could not stop from shooting one of the many stork condos that have been increasing over the last few years.
What a gorgeous run and beautiful descriptions of it!