Bugibba 10km foot race – technical aspects
This race was the third event in this season's Road Running League.
Click here for a: GPX file of the route
Click here for: full results
Route
Elevation & Grade
Temperature & Wind
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Archive for the ‘ Athletics ’ Category
Mdina to Spinola foot race – technical aspects
Mdina to Spinola Route
Mdina to Spinola: Elevation - Distance
Mdina to Spinola: Grade - Distance
Mdina to Spinola: Adjusted Temperature & Wind Speed
Click here for GPX file of route: Mdina to Spinola
Click here for: Results 2010
10.7 classic miles
Mdina to Spinola. This is a race I've always loved. if I can't put my finger on one specific reason why, it's because there is a handful of them.
- 0715 and the silent city of Mdina welcomes the pitter-patter of running shoes warming up their soles for an 8 o'clock start. Maybe it's the hour, maybe it's the place, but even normally boisterous athletes converse in subdued, reverential tones as they circuit the medieval streets. This is another facet of a place which draws me here repeatedly for its photogenic spots, for its cafes serving delectable cakes, for its museums that transport me to another time.
- The distance is not quite a half-marathon, but almost there - congenial for those who have more in common with the tortoise than the hare.
- Saturday night revellers would have just about finished downing their cocktail of spirits when runners wake up for this race. As the Mdina to Spinola is usually held on the Sunday before the 25 December, we imbibe the spirit of Christmas while doing what we love most.
- Spinola, only a few metres from where I lived the first 30 years of my life. A race which starts "away" but finishes "home". I can still say this, even though I have moved on, because my sprint to the finish (if I have it in me) starts as I pass the blood red front door and balcony of my mother's house.
I love this race irrespective of the result because interpreting a finishing time is a language with many dialects. Let me explain.
Years back I was angry to have finished this race in one hour six minutes and something, and for the rest of the day I had a face even longer than the distance I had run.
Today I was ten minutes slower than that time but I have satisfaction plastered all over me.
The expectations had shifted. For a variety of reasons which I needn't go into here, a 1:25 would have left me fulfilled while anything outside 1:30 would have been sorely disappointing. Instead, I found myself double-checking the watch as I crossed the line, incredulous of the digits that were staring back at me.
Mdina to Spinola 2010
Click here for: Technical aspects of the race
Softly, torpedoed
Daylight is still shortening its stride, making it more and more difficult for me to fit in a run without encroaching on darkness's domain. To help me ford the night, I invested in a state-of-the-art Petzl headlamp and the bosky route I usually traverse is now an "open all hours" territory.
Tonight was a case in point. At a quarter to eight, I was still feeling bloated from a latish, albeit delicious, 2-course meal of mama's cooking. My eyelids were also having a say in the bodily conference, gently tugging downwards as I played some moves in my on-line backgammon tournaments. Conniving with a reluctant body, the heavens issued an ominous rumble while my desktop weather station reminded me that the outside temperature was soon going to reach a single digit figure.
And so it was that 15 minutes later I hit the initial stretch of tarmac, trying to find my legs before the secure surface dropped off (literally) to a mix of rock, loose stones and muddy patches. As happy as I am with the luminosity of my headlamp, it still doesn't beat the natural light of day. Hence the extra care and almost chameleon-like moves when the North Face running shoes failed to find a grip.
The earlier thunder had a bark worse than its bite, because it only deposited a drizzle throughout the 50-minute session. However, it turned out to be a fascinating sight. At times the strong wind played chicken with me, approaching me at speed with the intent of making me veer off-course; not very successfully, I must add. It was at these moments that the gentle raindrops failed to fall to the ground anymore but, buoyed by the current of air, found a near-horizontal trajectory. The Petzl lamp caught each and every one of these thousands of watery torpedoes in a flood of light, illumining the individual droplets before they impacted upon me ever so softly.
Profile of a Sunday trail run
Trail Ghajn Tuffieha 12-12-2010, Elevation - Distance
Eleanor Roosevelt:
"Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."
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