I’m standing almost alone beneath a church clock tower that marks the heart of the picture-perfect Andorran town of Ordino. Over the course of the coming weekend around 2,000 runners will leave and return to this tower, completing races covering various distances from 2.5km to 230km that make up the Andorra Trail Ultra race weekend.
Right now, under the inflatable Start-Finish line it’s eerily quiet. And though I’m not religious, I have the urge to go into the church and pray for the fortitude that’ll help me be one of those runners.
There are seven races that make up the Andorra Ultra Trail festival of mountain running:
Euforia – 230km (20,000m+ elevation)
Ronda del Cims – 170k (13,500m+ elevation)
Mitic – 112km (9,700m+ elevation)
Celestrail – 83km (5,000m+ elevation)
Maratao del Cims – 42.5km (3,000m+ elevation)
Solidaritrail – 10km (750m+ elevation)
Tamaro – 2.5km Tamaro fun run (50m+ elevation)
And even the fun run has the same elevation as most urban marathon courses squeezed into 2.5km.
Watch: Andorra Ultra Trail Celestrail 83km recap
The only way is up
I’m taking on the 83km Celestrail, the middle-sized race with 5,000m+ of elevation gain. I hope it’ll prove to be my Goldilocks distance but looking around I’m not so sure. Even the town centre here is alarmingly lumpy. The finish line sits on a hill that most city marathon runners would baulk at. Not to mention it’s July and it’s still 28 degrees. At 6pm.
If this is anything to go by, I’m in for a challenge. I’m a bit rattled and already starting to wonder if I’ve bitten off more mountain than I can chew. I’ve not got the best track record with mountain ultras.
I’ve never had a race put me so totally and utterly on my arse after so little running. I want to get on the bus and go home. But there isn’t one.
On a wall beneath the clock tower, a neon digital display scrolls through the details of every race in the Andorra Ultra series. You can see the start times, the number of runners and how long each race has been going since the starting pistol. Runners in the meatier Euforia challenge have already been at it for 28 hours and they’re just getting started.
The board reveals that my race starts at midnight. With just short of 500 runners, experience tells me to expect to spend long periods alone. The Celestrail has a 24-hour cut off and based on a less-than-perfect training block, I’m fairly sure I’ll need most of that. The idea of heading into a second night alone on a sparse mountain trail is a lonely prospect.
The Andorra Ultra Trail is very much a French and Spanish affair with very little English spoken around town. There are just ten runners from the UK on the Celestrail start list (I checked at the expo) so even when I’m not alone, I’m not relying on conversation for comfort out on the course. Having travelled alone, it’s quite isolating, amplified by the fact that Andorra isn’t in the EU and so data roaming is firmly switched off on my smartphone to avoid a mega bill.
With no social media for distraction, I spend the day before the race with little to occupy me but my thoughts about the race ahead. Home feels even further away than it might on a regular trip to this part of the world and I can’t help feeling this is definitely a place to come with family or a group of running mates.
How to get to the Andorra Ultra trail
Andorra is a principality that straddles the French and Spanish Pyrenees and getting here is fairly simple, if a little long. There’s no international airport so you have to fly into Barcelona, Girona or Reus in Spain or Toulouse, Carcassonne and Perpignan in France and get a transfer bus.
I flew into Barcelona and took a 4-hour bus ride. If you’re racing the Celestrail or the Mitic, the timing of the transfers means you’ll likely have to arrive on Thursday for the Friday night start.
The race is a huge deal here. Much like the UTMB consumes Chamonix, Ordino becomes one big race village. It even takes centre stage on the place mats of the handful of cafes and restaurants here. While I’m dining a picture of an ultra runner hacking up a steep rocky section of the trails stares back at me, a small window into what awaits.
You can walk round Ordino in 20 minutes and everything in the build up to the race is very laid back. The race ‘expo’ takes place in a small convention hall with a handful of kit stalls and a friendly vibe. Collecting the race pack takes all of 15 minutes. Videos roll on a big screen with 3D run throughs of each of the courses.
On the day of the race at 5pm, the local Centre of the Arts auditorium hosts a very thorough race briefing for the Celestrail and the Mitic. We’re treated to the same full 3D topographical video run through of both courses on a big cinema screen.
One savage vertical climb in the Mitic draws audible gasp and nervous laughs. It’s a gut-churning taster of how much more suffering these guys face than us and I’m thankful not to have that in my future.
There are also warnings about vipers – the only venomous snake in the Pyrenees apparently – and what to do in lightning storms. None of this settles my nerves.
The final countdown
Finding something to eat in Ordino on the evening of the race is a challenge. The selection of restaurants isn’t huge (there are only about 5) and between 7pm-8pm it’s rush hour for runners hunting mountain fuel. It makes me wonder why they don’t do the race briefing earlier to give people the chance to get that out of the way and rest up.
Eventually I settle for a little tapas-cum-pizza place and even though I arrive by. 6.00pm, I’m not done until 8.30pm. With 3.5 hours to go until gun time, I return to my hotel room to try and get some rest. But that’s wishful thinking.
I’m sharing a room with another member of the media. But he didn’t show up last night so I presume he’s not coming. It’s hot and muggy and knowing that I’m going to be strapped into compression gear for 24 hours very soon, I decide to strip butt naked and lie on the bed. I have this urge to feel free. Thirty seconds after I’ve assumed the starfish position on my bed the door bursts open and a bearded photographer busts in. I immediately leap up and shout ‘No! No!’
I presume he comes to the only conclusion he can, that I was indulging in a bit of self love. I decide saying nothing is better than making it worse by pleading my innocence.
Either way it busts my chill and I spend the next few hours twitching on my bed before it’s time to suit up in my ultra running armour and head to the start line.
Final kit checks take place at the start line and we’re advised to arrive in plenty of time. I arrive around 10.30pm to find that the kit check won’t even open until 11.30pm, 30 mins before gun time. It feels odd to leave this final logistical hurdle so late and it puts me on edge. I want the formalities out of the way so I can relax and focus on the job ahead. Instead I pace around wondering if I’ve got everything to pass the checks.
In the end kit check involves waving my waterproof jacket at a race official before being ushered into the start pen. As the start line swells with runners and supporters, I can’t help but think everyone looks a lot more mountain goat to my lowland lamb. They all look like they’ve seen things before.
Up, up and away
The race organiser try to do their best to make the start atmospheric but it’s a bit of an unemotive send off, despite the fireworks and the stilt walkers waving glow sticks. It’s not UTMB, that’s for sure.
When we finally get moving, I glance at the clock tower that’s just turned midnight. It feels a little surreal that it could be a whole day until I see that again. I bury the idea quickly and start putting one foot in front of the other.
The first 5km of the race take us along some roads out of town, before we hit some light trails along a river. It’s a leisurely start and I don’t realise it at the time, but it’ll be a long wait until we get to run so freely again.
The Celestrail is a front-loaded race with much of the serious climbing early on and it’s not long before the race takes its first big upward turn. We face a gruelling 1,000m of climbing crammed into the second 5km. This is steep hands-on-knees uphill struggling and some of the mountain goats I saw at the start line are already taking rest stops. I’m forced to join then, intermittently stepping aside to let the heavy breathing snake of lights writhe past.
It’s a brutal introduction to running in the Pyrenees and by the time I hit the first aid station – that takes an eternity to come at 15km – I’m busted. Mentally and physically.
I’ve never had a race put me so totally and utterly on my arse after so little running. I want to get on the bus and go home. But there isn’t one. So I’m forced to carry on. But I’m already thinking about bailing at the earliest possible opportunity.
Out of the first aid station we are ‘treated’ to a 2.5m descent but on the way down I continually hit hidden rocks, clipping my back foot more times than I’ve ever done. With each near fall the adrenaline surges. It’s sapping. I usually run well on the night sections but for some reason, tired legs, tired mind or both, I’m struggling.
It’s not long before I’m on another testing 800m climb, also crammed into 5km. When I hit the second aid station halfway up that second big climb, I’m still looking for the bus. We’re still in the middle of the mountains and again there isn’t one. The only way to get out of here is to push on to the next aid station. And so, on I go.
Luckily, the aid stations are great with a fantastic selection of good food, from watermelon and nuts to salty broths with pasta. The people are helpful and friendly, offering support and encouragement. And I get to park my bum on a bench indoors for a few minutes and restore some mental equilibrium.
After some decent food I trudge back onto the hill for another brutally steep section of ascent. The kind where you have to either look at your feet or back behind you, but never up. As impossible as it felt two hours prior, I eventually hit the top, just as the fuel from the aid station hits my blood stream, dawn breaks and the sun comes up. It’s spectacular. The 360-degree views fill me with a wave of joy. From being dead on my feet, all of a sudden I’m alive, energised. For the first time in the race I actually feel like I want to be here. And it’s a huge relief.
Much of the next 8km is downhill and though the descents are technical and offer little rest, it’s a welcome change from the climbs. It feels good to finally get moving. There’s a sting in the tail before we hit the next aid station at 30km, a near vertical 300m pain march up underneath a ski lift. But I do what ultra runners do best, get my head down and keep moving towards that next opportunity for respite where I can once more take stock.
By the time my bum is on a seat in that aid station, I’ve run for more than 7 hours . We’ve covered just 30km of the 83km and the finish line feels far out of reach. But I’m a different person to the husk that sat on a wet rock at the first aid station and wanted to quit. I’m reborn. I’ve been to the dark side and come back into the light. It seems strange to say it but I almost feel like I’ve already won, just by battling through those early bleak hours, I’ve achieved something special here. But I’m not done yet.
I’ve been aware for a while that I’m running perilously close to the cut offs and there are just 3 hours to cover the next 15km. But I’ve been told by another runner that the next section is very run-able. So, with one last handful of dried fruit, I stumble out of the aid station, stick my music on and prepare to give it all I’ve got to beat the clock.
It turns out to be the best part of my race and for the first time in a long time, I’m not just moving, I’m moving brilliantly with a big smile on my face. I’m pumped. The UTMB tune Vangelis’ Conquest of Paradise comes on and I’m reminded of the heroics I watched last year in Chamonix. This is what it feels like to be strong enough to overcome the mountain demons, I tell myself. This is the rebirth.
Five of the 15km fly by in well under an hour along some more friendly rolling trails. That’s followed by 10km of much steeper descents. We drop about 1,000m in 10km during which time the big burning sun shows up and the cool morning turns into a midday oven.
I make it into the aid station with 40 mins to spare but it comes at a cost. My quads are shredded from attacking the nine mile descent into the town of Escaldes.
Running through town as people go about their Saturday business is surreal. I’m a smelly, sweaty, panting mess marauding through pristine shopping precincts. This return to civilisation also feels like it should be the finish line and when I finally clock into a big sportshall in the centre of town, I seriously question whether that’s my race done.
I consult the course info on my crumpled race bib and I see that the cut offs from here get a little less aggressive. I check with the stewards that there’s a bail-out bus at the next aid station and as I’ve done multiple times already during this race, I decide to crack on.
Never trust maps on race numbers
What comes next is the kind of surprise you only really get doing mountain ultras. The course profile on my race number appears to show a long gradual climb. It turns out to be a lie. With the sun now scorching, we exit town up a worryingly steep path. Another runner from the UK shares a bit of local intel he’s picked up. This next section is apparently the most brutal of the race. I quickly wish he’d kept that to himself.
Though I pray he’s been misled, I soon discover his intel is accurate. This next climb in the now-blistering heat rapidly turns into a beast, sending me back to the state I was in during the first part of the race, only with added dehydration. No matter how much water I drink I can’t seem to quench my thirst. I quickly drain my bottles dry hours from the next aid station. My morale hits an all-time low. The thirstier I become the harder it is to eat. The less fuel I take on the lower my energy ebbs and the higher the troubled waters rise.
At this point I’m very glad to have trekking poles, that let me run with my arms in some sections.
It eventually takes me 2 hours to reach the next aid station at Pardines. My spirits get a boost when I bump into another of the 10 Brits on the course and we chat our way to the temporary salvation of a canvas tent and a chair. I refuel, drink as much water as I can without risking bringing on nausea and head back onto the course. It’s the first time an aid station has failed to budge the needle on my mental state. The intense heat is ripping me to pieces.
To make matters worse, my knee starts to grumble. The tendonitis I suffered in my last failed mountain race, the same injury that had forced me to drop out of the Lavaredo, was threatening to return. I struggle on for another couple of hours but with just 15 km to go, it’s this that finally beats me. Having spent 3 months not really running, I decide against risking a recurrence of this injury.
After 16.5 hours, 42 miles and just short of 4,000 meters of climbing, I trudge into a timing checkpoint and decide to call it a day, adding my name to the 50% DNF rate. Of the 429 runners who start, only 242 finish. For the second time in a year I’m on the bail out bus back to town.
As we ride back to Ordino, I realise I’m not the least bit upset about adding another DNF to my growing collection. I feel a great sense of achievement at having dug my way out of the darkness of the first 15km. This was my victory out here. I’d kept going when I really wanted to quit and I won a big battle out there in the Pyrenees. I conquered climbs that were a close match for those I’ll face in the Lavaredo. And I knew I’d be stronger for it. Plus I’d be getting back to town in time for a pizza, a beer and a few hours kip before my 4am bus pick up back to Barcelona.
