V Trail Dehesa De Santa Fe’ – Santa Fe, Granada, 18 September 2021

The V Trail Dehesa De Santa Fe was a 22 km, about 600 metres climbing, starting and finishing in Santa Fe, a small town outside Granada.  This was our second night trail race competition but as we found out completely different terrain than the Huella del Bujo.   In many ways it was more challenging as the ups and downs where much steeper and more frequent and the ground dusty and slippery, making the steep downhills even harder.   Starting at 8pm made a difference though in terms of heat and so I found this a bit easier in terms of not completely blowing up after the first 5 kms (*laughs*). 

I am not sure that I enjoyed the race as it was extremely hard going and as Julio said afterwards, hard to get into any rhythm.   The last 4 kms was slightly downhill and on easier terrain and I managed to catch and overtake one man and finish quite strongly with a placing of second female overall.    The official time was 3.14.20 but my actual time on my Garmin was 2.59.26.    This was due to some stopping and talking with Julio who initially had a leg/knee problem which luckily worked itself out a bit and he finished the race in good form. 

We were then joined at the finish by out Ultra trail running friends, Sarah and Steve, for a pizza and beer to wrap up a busy and tiring night.   Got home and to sleep around 12.30pm and managed to get about six and half hours sleep before going to Alcala to set up for doing post-event massage at the I Trail run Alcala La real.  The race started at 9.30am and I wanted to be there in time to set up but also to see the race start.  It was a lovely day and Tonie joined me at around 9.45am as she was helping to do the massage as there were quite a lot of competitors and, potentially we were going to be busy. 

The race was a great success and after a slow start Tonie and I were kept very busy with quite a number of runners coming for massage. 

We ended early afternoon and as a reward went for a lunch at the Shell Garage Restaurant and enjoyed a nice meal with a cold beer before heading home for a well-earned rest.