Day 3 Nite 3. These days pass in contrasts, as must be the case when you're covering 50 k a day in changeable weather. Day 2 I woke up in a crater in a field of sand dunes stabilised by juniper trees. A relatively rare habitat in Crete these days following centuries of over-grazing. The previous night I had almost been forced to set up my bivouac in a cliff-top car park, except I managed to talk the ranger into letting me access this environmentally sensitive area so late in the day with a promise that I would not stray from the path, nor light a fire. But let me believe that my speaking Greek helped too.:)
Morning saw me scrambling along a craggy, scree strewn path, with fixed ropes over exposed sections. I was on the extreme north western side of the islamd, exposed to the prevailing winds, which were still blowing in intermittent squalls from the latest storm. Rain jacket zipped up tight to my chin, and elasticated hood tightened around my hairline, I was warm with the exertion, and only wet inside with my own perspiration. Every so often I encountered an eddy in the wind, and the drizzle whipped against the nylon hood with a sound like crackling static. Between squalls the birds began to sing.
On exposed and technical sections like these, everything of course slows down. The famed Cretan ibex, the Kri-Kri, may be able to scamper blithely over crags and precipices, but evolution has not equipped us for the same. Instead the focus narrows in on just where to place the next footstep, the next hand hold. It is like a game of chess, or a tango, in which your opponent, or partner, is the terrain itself. Choose your metaphor. Either way there are rules within which you can act, steps you must interpret, and there in the nexus between the possible and your actual choice is the potential for tension, anticipated and resolved with each successive step.
I started trail running to make the connecting pieces of trail between technical climbs just as interesting. Or perhaps more accurately, just as satisfying. On technical sections where so much is at stake, intense focus is required, maxing out your attentional resources. Just like running, you enter that flatline space where it is impossible to ruminate and there is no room for phantoms.
After three hours of scrambling I arrived at Falasarna, site of an ancient Roman port, a long sandy beach, and the beginning of an asphalt road. From here down to Elafonisi at the south-west corner, I would be road-running. I checked my GPS. 48 km separated the two settlements - too long to reach now that it was around midday. But I could at least make a dent in that distance. The sun had now begun to peep out from behind the cloud, and patches of clear sky up above had shifted the colour of the sea into the almost blue. I took off my shoes, removed some loose stones and began running.
It was the second time that I have run that particular stretch of road. I knew it would take me up and down many times, and that it would zig zag around long hairpins to negotiate the.numerous gorges and contours of the coastal strip. But you do not think of the journey complete when you run. You only focus on the present rhythm of your gait and the simple privilege of being fit enough to use your body for what it was designed. Evolutionary biologists will tell you -according to the bio mechanics of our frame, we are fundamentally animals of the hunt, animals of the chase.
Hours passed, and impressions billowed in like the morning squalls. A tiny family convenience store where years before I had bought refreshment from a black-clad widow and her wide-eyed and curious grand-daughter. Withered grapes, dying on the vine, left dangling after harvest by some careless eye. An oncoming motorcyclist clutching something to his bosom in his left hand, which on passing turns out to be a daschund puppy, ears flung back, placid and graceful eyes half shut against the current of air. And dark clouds, with the tell-tale haze of heavy rain falling in a valley up ahead, while I approach on bone dry roads.
At around 17.00 with 2 hours left to sunset, I stopped for some salty potato chips and a beer at one of the pantopoleoia/kafeneoia that you only find in villages where all the young folk have left. Dark wooden cabinets with dusty glass doors housed sunbleached dried goods and tins. A calculator and a drawer served as a till. From there I descended to a flat coastal plateau with olive groves and scattered villas.
Running south down the west coast of Crete along a coastal plain on an autumn evening is to be recommended. The flat plain prevents the seabourne moisture from rising above your head and forming rain clouds. What clouds there are may swirl off the inland peaks and blacken the sky overhead,, but the sun at this time of day, and especially at this time of year, is so low to the horizon that it simply streams on under the gloom. Having spent most of my day under heavy leaden skies, now suddenly everything was suffused in the heavenly light of the Aegean. The ribbon of asphalt wound it's way through olive groves a hundred metres from the sea, the slightest breath of wind causing the leaves to strobe their silver underbelly. A massive square-set farmer ripped handfuls of straw out of a bale he was carrying under one arm, and tossed them into a herd of sheep, which bleated and shook their little tin bells. It was only 4 km to the chapel of Agios Theodoros and it felt like I was coming home.
Morning saw me scrambling along a craggy, scree strewn path, with fixed ropes over exposed sections. I was on the extreme north western side of the islamd, exposed to the prevailing winds, which were still blowing in intermittent squalls from the latest storm. Rain jacket zipped up tight to my chin, and elasticated hood tightened around my hairline, I was warm with the exertion, and only wet inside with my own perspiration. Every so often I encountered an eddy in the wind, and the drizzle whipped against the nylon hood with a sound like crackling static. Between squalls the birds began to sing.
On exposed and technical sections like these, everything of course slows down. The famed Cretan ibex, the Kri-Kri, may be able to scamper blithely over crags and precipices, but evolution has not equipped us for the same. Instead the focus narrows in on just where to place the next footstep, the next hand hold. It is like a game of chess, or a tango, in which your opponent, or partner, is the terrain itself. Choose your metaphor. Either way there are rules within which you can act, steps you must interpret, and there in the nexus between the possible and your actual choice is the potential for tension, anticipated and resolved with each successive step.
I started trail running to make the connecting pieces of trail between technical climbs just as interesting. Or perhaps more accurately, just as satisfying. On technical sections where so much is at stake, intense focus is required, maxing out your attentional resources. Just like running, you enter that flatline space where it is impossible to ruminate and there is no room for phantoms.
After three hours of scrambling I arrived at Falasarna, site of an ancient Roman port, a long sandy beach, and the beginning of an asphalt road. From here down to Elafonisi at the south-west corner, I would be road-running. I checked my GPS. 48 km separated the two settlements - too long to reach now that it was around midday. But I could at least make a dent in that distance. The sun had now begun to peep out from behind the cloud, and patches of clear sky up above had shifted the colour of the sea into the almost blue. I took off my shoes, removed some loose stones and began running.
It was the second time that I have run that particular stretch of road. I knew it would take me up and down many times, and that it would zig zag around long hairpins to negotiate the.numerous gorges and contours of the coastal strip. But you do not think of the journey complete when you run. You only focus on the present rhythm of your gait and the simple privilege of being fit enough to use your body for what it was designed. Evolutionary biologists will tell you -according to the bio mechanics of our frame, we are fundamentally animals of the hunt, animals of the chase.
Hours passed, and impressions billowed in like the morning squalls. A tiny family convenience store where years before I had bought refreshment from a black-clad widow and her wide-eyed and curious grand-daughter. Withered grapes, dying on the vine, left dangling after harvest by some careless eye. An oncoming motorcyclist clutching something to his bosom in his left hand, which on passing turns out to be a daschund puppy, ears flung back, placid and graceful eyes half shut against the current of air. And dark clouds, with the tell-tale haze of heavy rain falling in a valley up ahead, while I approach on bone dry roads.
At around 17.00 with 2 hours left to sunset, I stopped for some salty potato chips and a beer at one of the pantopoleoia/kafeneoia that you only find in villages where all the young folk have left. Dark wooden cabinets with dusty glass doors housed sunbleached dried goods and tins. A calculator and a drawer served as a till. From there I descended to a flat coastal plateau with olive groves and scattered villas.
Running south down the west coast of Crete along a coastal plain on an autumn evening is to be recommended. The flat plain prevents the seabourne moisture from rising above your head and forming rain clouds. What clouds there are may swirl off the inland peaks and blacken the sky overhead,, but the sun at this time of day, and especially at this time of year, is so low to the horizon that it simply streams on under the gloom. Having spent most of my day under heavy leaden skies, now suddenly everything was suffused in the heavenly light of the Aegean. The ribbon of asphalt wound it's way through olive groves a hundred metres from the sea, the slightest breath of wind causing the leaves to strobe their silver underbelly. A massive square-set farmer ripped handfuls of straw out of a bale he was carrying under one arm, and tossed them into a herd of sheep, which bleated and shook their little tin bells. It was only 4 km to the chapel of Agios Theodoros and it felt like I was coming home.
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