52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 12
Sintra trailblazing
Monday April 8th, 6:44 am
I spent another weekend grounded by the flying sand dust of the Sahara. The plan was to circumnavigate the Lisbon Airport but I had to postpone that flight to the next weekend. It is not possible to run in Lisbon during the week because of early morning traffic. I was out yesterday dusting off my mountain bike on the trails of Sintra. I manage to get much lower heart rates, and breathing intensity, during the MTB rides, so I took the “Dune” risk - fortunately the dust had settled already. I have biked these trails for many years now, and I know them like the back of my hand, so I had decided to keep them as backup plans for missed weekend runs.
Civil sunrise was at 6:41 AM, but with the sky packed with menacing clouds, it was still too dark. I started again at the Aldi parking lot as one needs just to cross the road to find the portal entrance to the mystic Sintra trails. Maybe a little too mystic this early in the morning, as the power company turned off the street lights at around 6:45 AM and it became pitch dark.
My iPhone flash light came to the rescue, but still, the darkness of the forest swallowed me in one piece. With the phone light, I can barely see 2 meters ahead of me, and concentrated on not twisting an ankle because of the uneven terrain (more on that later). The crushing darkness of the forest was intense, but unfortunately, the eclipse was not going to be felt around here - the sun would be up anytime now.
It’s a wide trail heading down for 2 km to the main road. There are some private properties in the area that prevent access to the core capillarity trails of the mountain. I have to follow the main road for about 0.5 km to access another trailhead.
It’s still very dark. I was hoping to catch some nice photos on the Lagoa Azul trail loop but smartphone sensors are still way behind the human ones.
There is a nice single track that follows most of the road for quite a while. Eventually I had to give in, and jump into the middle of the road. I wanted to start my climb at the Dam - Barragem da Mula, and had no time, or miles, to use the inner trails.
Once again, either Apple got the probabilities wrong or Murphy turned against me. It was not supposed to rain after 7 AM, but the Deluge came down on me. Rain was coming down in curtains so hard that I could barely see the road.
The human brain is amazing, it can store hundreds of kms of roads and trails but with a catch. I need to access the files in a sequential manner to get the best possible fidelity. I also found out that the access speed needs to match the storage speed and direction for best performance.
All of this to say that I would be going on my MTB trails at a much slower speed, obviously, and in many cases following an inverse path to what I am used to.
Surprisingly having the time to look at the landscape, from a reverse perspective, will generate some guidance errors and stutters. It is very common, specially in winter, to have trees fall down right in the middle of the trail. I try not to think about it too much, trusting Murphy to be on my side on this one.
I missed a turn that led me into puddle that took the fool width of the trail. I managed to cross it fully submerging my left foot. Not bad I thought, at least the right one is still dry. A couple of hundred meters ahead I notice that I am not on the right trail (which I had rarely done in this direction and a hundred times in the other direction), so I had to go back, and, you guessed it, fully submerge my right foot. I am now drenched from the top of my head down to the sole of my feet - nice!
There is no such thing as a flat trail in Sintra, except for the loops around the lagoons. The trail goes up and down until I arrive at the now full dam of Barragem da Mula. The drought is officially over, around here.
I am approaching the jewel of the day, trilho das pontes (trail of the bridges), a 2 km single track that zigzags crossing a creek coming down the mountain. Probably my favorite MTB trail in Sintra, which of course, I never do uphill as I was about to it.
It’s very steep, narrow, full of tree roots, I love it and it’s amazingly beautiful.
At the starting line there is a large tree that fell a couple of yeas ago. By the root is a delightful bike jump when coming down. I am too wet to jump going up.
The sound of the water coming down the creek is the perfect backing track to the early singing birds. I have the bass line as my feet stomp the thick mattress of leaves and mud pacing myself to the perfect tune. It is very hard to describe how satisfying it is to step on this trail. I have the very same feeling coming down on the bike. It’s like I am riding and running on fluffy clouds.
The trees are laying around like mikado and in some areas of the trail are so tight that I’ve had some shoulders twisting impacts on my way down.
Creek crossings are done with improvised MTB style bridges that are extremely slippery and not made for pedestrians. I stopped to cross all of them carefully. I’ve have dived several times into the creek because of slippery tyres, I am not wearing protection today.
A drawback of going up on the trails running is noticing all the traps and dangerous descent lines that I have no time to see when coming down on the bike. The lack of oxygen in my brain prevents these memories from sticking so I am not worried.
I took many photographs but most of them came out blurry because of the conjunction of movement and low light. This must have been the most effortless climbing that I recall off. There is so much to admire and as many to be on the watch that there is no time to get tired.
I lost count of how many bridges I have crossed. No two are the same and all of them are much different from the viewpoint of coming down on the top of a bike. Even though I have seen some of them pretty darn close to my nose over some artistic falls. If there is one axiom of biking, is that you will fall no matter what - I have demonstrated that proposition solving over multiple angles of the equations of the laws of physics.
I get lost in inverse path, as my mind gets tricked by the other side of the landscape. I think the end of the trail is around the next boulder only to be surprised of being further down than I expected. Happily surprised, as there is more of it to enjoy.
I have seen this creek with a lot more water than today, which puzzles me, because lately it has rained a lot. The sound of the mini waterfalls in chorus is soothing and I would not mind sitting around contemplating it for a few minutes. Plans for another day.
All good things come to an end. The single track joins the main trail. It is actually possible to follow the single track all the way up to the top of one of the highest peaks in Sintra, but it was not on the planned route.
The main trail is way too steep and my legs become heavier without the enchantment of the creek melody.
Basecamp comes after a long 2.5 km climb. This is normally a busy area, a gathering point for mountain bikers that would love to take non-existent ski lifts to the top the mountain and then come down on the numerous black diamonds. The lifts are no longer required because most riders are now on e-Bikes and are able to go on multiple rides of the merry-go-round. I am still using a carbon dioxide exhaust, pedal moved bike, so I normally will only go up twice, maybe 3, times in a row.
Basecamp is close by the unique Convent of Capuchos, a secluded historical convent with cramped small quarters that look like they came out of the Hobbit. Something that you should visit as a tourist..
I keep going against the natural flow of my MTB routes and even my most ridden path is able to fool me as I get confused in my whereabouts - I wonder if it is just me.
Park rangers keep chopping down, what they call invasive species, and in the winter it is normal to have the trails destroyed by all the machines doing works. I have cursed many times because of beautiful trails that have been ruined by their landscaping.
It looks to me as if they keep loosing the fight against this invader, because the trails keep rebuilding themselves. At some point it time it smelled fishy to me that so much money was being spent and I tried to look at the public accounting of the parks. They lost me when I saw that some units were under the trash management division.
Out of nowhere, in a perfectly even trail, I twisted my left ankle very painfully. The forest had to cover their ears over my cursing words. I stopped and had to walk for about 100 meters and then I stomped it back in place running again. This trail was haunted, because not even 300 meters ahead I slipped on the buttery silk smooth mud and fell on my side. This time I gifted the woods with really loud laughing instead of cursing (even though I got some dose of rash on the leg.)
It was almost time to head down, I was going to do it on the same wide trail that I had done on the day before mountain biking (I had come up and also down on this trail). It’s a steep ~3.5 km (ascent/descent), know has the Jeeps. This trail is just as hard going up as going down. Going up because of being long and steep. Going down because of all the speed that fools like me tend to ride downhill (I used to be on the top fast riders going downhill in Strava on this trail). It is brutal on your bones and muscles.
I wanted my revenge from the day before as I stomped on the trail full speed going down, but I had my ankle and previous fall sitting on my left and right shoulders.
Yesterday I came up this trail around 8 AM and it was just me and a friend of mine. As we went down around 10 AM (we came for a short ride), the trail was packed with riders coming up.
Today, I saw no one.
Arriving at the bottom I noticed a gate that I had never seen before. Probably because of this being the very last turn of the descent where normally I am trying not to “die”.
Running in solitude is liberating and meditative. Mountain biking cleans the mind in a different way. The focus is on trying not to get hurt, so there is nothing else that your mind can think about. Two very different ways of prolonging my emotional health, hand washing or pressure washing my head and body.
I ventured into a trail that goes parallel to the road but that is way too narrow for my biking confidence. It is perfect for running and avoiding the road. I am amazed by the blue skies that are now peeking between the trees and decide that I have to go again on the Blue Lagoon loop to get by dream photos back from early morning.
My choice is spot on, even though I am now very late for work, I forgive myself for doing so. There are more photo spots than photographs that I can take.
I am still ~3 km away from the finish line and know all too well that the climb back is still hard, specially on my battered legs from the MTB excursion.
I am on the same trail that was haunting me in the darkness of the morning. It is also very beautiful and it is hard to believe on how close we are to the main busy road,
The final climb is on the access road to the property of a lucky owner. I have never seen a car on this road.
I get back to the Aldi parking lot trying to solve the problem of getting back in my wife’s car without getting it filthy. I guess I will have to drive with no shoes (I did not prepare my self with some exchange clothing).
This run was absolutely glorious, I carried a smile in my face for the remaining of the day and barely could wait to share it in my words.
What a privilege!
Enjoy your runs!
-APF