Setting off on my bike under a heavily clouded sky with rain forecast to a probability of 97%, I discounted Janine’s warnings with a manly ‘Well if I get wet, I get wet! Not the end of the world’.
Ah, but it can be, very nearly. In the past I’ve had some really miserable times in the rain, not least on cycle-camping holidays in Norfolk. We don’t get much chance to experience rain in La Gomera and one tends to view the risk lightly. This morning’s trip was important, I was heading into town to deliver to a new outlet a few copies of my book ¿Todavía silban?, the Spanish version of Do they still whistle? - which, incidentally, includes a story about the joyful benefits of rain. I hadn’t even delivered the books before the first drops began to patter on my cycle helmet. Within minutes I was engulfed by the first real downpour of the season.
I sheltered under the narrow awning of a bakery along with several other people, all of whom were pretending to be happy. The very worst thing about Gomeran rain, which is just as unpleasant as anyone else’s when it happens, is that you’re not allowed to complain about it. I scuttled into the bakery to buy a couple of loaves just as Jorge was about to emerge. ‘Mucha agua!’ I warned him, lots of water, wiping mini-cascades from my forehead.
‘Es buena!’ he roared, throwing his arms apart and gazing towards the ceiling like one giving thanks for a heavenly bounty. Jorge is unfailingly cheerful and often hands out boiled sweets from his pocket. Of course he was absolutely right, rain is only good, rain is a bounty anywhere (except in Norfolk when you’re camping) and intellectually I joined everyone else in celebrating this early gift of water for the reservoirs. But it could have waited until I got home.
But those who were up there today must be a very special breed of human being. They set off from San Sebastián at nine o’clock on Wednesday morning and were required to run a serpentine course around the entire island, a distance of 212 kilometres, to arrive back within 85 hours. On a Gomeran footpath you’re never far from an uphill climb and the ascents in this race totalled 13 kilometres, along with the downhills which can be even more challenging. Challenge was the whole point of course, the event was called the WAA 360º and subtitled The Challenge. WAA is a specialist company selling high-tech clothing and equipment for people who enjoy challenges. WAA stands for What An Adventure.
Not only did participants need to be up to this adventure physically, they also had to find their way along the route unaided, without marshals to guide them at critical decision points. The only help they got was a map on their mobile phone. There were four base camps at intervals around the route for optional food, shelter and rest but it was up to each competitor to devise their own race strategy.
My specific worry was that rain makes those rocky paths much more slippery, especially on the downhill stretches, and is also chilling. In northwest China a few months ago 21 trail runners - one of them a legendary champion - died when rain and high winds overcame them. One was rescued by a shepherd who carried him unconscious into a cave and lit a bonfire to warm him. So I was relieved to learn that an emergency meeting of the Gomeran race organisers had modified the route to avoid the highest, coldest and wettest stretches.
I also learned that, astonishingly, some of the participants had already arrived back in San Sebastián by the time I was sheltering from the drizzle on Friday morning. The first was an Italian whom everyone expected to win, a world champion, and he was photographed as he passed through the triumphal inflatable archway just after one o’clock in the morning, holding his arms aloft with a big smile on his face. One of those slight, wiry people who seem indestructible, he had run around the entire island in 40 hours and 8 minutes, commenting that it had been without doubt the most difficult race of his life. As a Gomeran by adoption I shall interpret that as a compliment.
