Posts Tagged ‘sport’

Open water

As another wave washed over me and threw me off direction I thought back to what Lucas had been saying: “It’s the easiest of the travesías, it’s hard to get lost.” He had paused a second and then added, “It’s also the hardest”

john and lucas

Me and Lucas, before

In January this year I joined Ovimaster, the masters swimming club in Oviedo (Masters swimming is for swimmers who are no longer in university/competition but who still enjoy swimming clubs and meets). I didn’t do any of the indoor competitions but I chatted to the others about open water swimming. In Asturias between the end of June and the end of August there are open water events pretty much every weekend. Some are local affairs, with a handful of competitors, others are international, like Navia, where the whole town turns out and the 500 swimmers parade in the morning, part of the local fiesta. There are river swims (descents and ascents (against the current)) and sea swims (travesías). There are short swims of 800m and long ones up to 8km (although there are few takers, and the weather has to cooperate). The travesía del Musel had been described as the purest of the sea swims, because it had the most open of open water sections. The route leaves the industrial Musel port from inside the harbour, which is usually used by tankers, ferrys, cruise ships and big cargo vessels. Then as you leave the harbour you turn right, following the breakwater until that takes another right and heads inland while you strike out across the bay to the calmer waters of the leisure port 2km distant.

I hadn’t done any open water swimming but it sounded like a challenge I would enjoy. I started with a 1500m race in Gijón, along San Lorenzo beach, and then a 5000m river swim in Navia. And lots of laps in the pool.

ovimaster swimmers

Team Ovimaster

We registered at the finish line, then stripped down to whatever swimwear we favoured. Vaseline or grease was applied liberally (not goose fat, and not for warmth, this was to stop chafing) before 100 oiled swimmers walked down to two waiting buses ready to take us to the start.

swimmers waiting for the bus

Ready to get on a bus

We clambered over slippy breakwater blocks and sat half in and half out of the water waiting for the start. Some people swam lazy warm-up strokes. The woman next to me slipped and head butted my shoulder before apologising profusely and laughing. People started shouting for the race to start. I don’t know what we were waiting for but we spent 15 minutes in the water becoming increasingly impatient. Then we were told to get in and line up. This took a frustratingly long time. I spotted Carmen, from Ovimaster, who would probably swim a similar time to me, and we nodded at each other, we would stick together, we said. If we could.

swimming in the rain

swimming in the rain

And then we were off, and it was the usual press of bodies and jumble of strokes until the faster swimmers had gone and there was more space for the rest of us. Inside the harbour walls there weren’t too many waves, although I was out on the edge of the group nearer the middle of the harbour and the swell was noticeable. 700m or so to the first turn, out of the harbour. It was relatively easy to navigate, the harbour wall and the big cranes on the right, but even so, I zigzagged a bit and had to correct myself time and again, sighting every four breaths or so.

It was a different story as we neared the corner. The sea swell was much more pronounced, sighting was much harder, I struggled to time it to match the crests of the waves but they seemed to be coming from all directions. It felt like it took forever to make the turn and once I did, the swell got even bigger. In all probability it was less than 1m but it was intimidating. I swallowed a fair amount of water but I concentrated on breathing and sighting and kept going. Every now and again I would see one of the support kayaks but not the other swimmers. I realised someone was shouting at me and took a couple of breast strokes to listen to the kayaker telling me to head more to the right. I said thanks and reoriented myself and was off once again. Someone appeared suddenly next to me (the water was clear, but you couldn’t see anything more than a couple of metres away because of the turbulent surface), Carmen. We swam together for a minute before more waves pushed us in different directions. I tried to guess how long we had been swimming. The breakwater was still to the right, so I was still less than halfway. That was a bit unsettling, because I felt tired from battling the waves. I kept trying to breathe at the top of the swell and it was getting better but the breakwater was refusing to recede into the distance.

Another kayaker shouted and I reoriented myself, off in the distance I could see the tallest building in the Gijón skyline, the one everyone said to aim for. I continued, a kayak hit me and the kayakers apologised profusely, no problem I said and kept on. Every so often I had to lift up my steamed up goggles to make sure I wasn’t heading for Ireland. The breakwater finally disappeared from my view to the right, I could see the shipyards next to Arbayal beach in the distance. I kept on trying to keep close enough to the kayaks so I didn’t have to change direction too much.

On the east side of the bay the waves eased a little and the swimming was easier. All of a sudden I could see the big green lighthouse which marked the entrance to the harbour. Rain started to fall heavily, which felt quite nice. A man in a white launch yelled for me to head right, I was going towards the breakwater rather than the harbour entrance. I felt good, I was going to finish. As I reached the harbour wall and swam between it and the lighthouse I could hear a couple of people cheering, I thought it was Luciano (the president of Ovimaster) but couldn’t be sure, not being able to see much.

Finished, finally

One slightly knackered swimmer on the jetty

Once in the harbour there was just 500m to go, in flat calm water, which feltlike a luxury. I swam past an enormous catamaran and reached the jetty where patient helpers told me to come out on all fours because the concrete was slippery. They reached a hand out and helped me to my unsteady feet. Knackered. I walked up the jetty, kissed Liz and enjoyed the feeling of having accomplished something difficult. Everyone agreed that it had been difficult, rough swimming. It took me an hour and twenty six minutes, which is the longest I have swum for.

Lucas came in five minutes ahead of me. He’s sixty seven.

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Pajares: chilly

pompeyo skiing

Pompeyo's nose

Liz was off running with her new running chums so I took advantage of Pompeyo’s offer to go skiing.

I’d already been to San Isidro and Fuentes de Invierno so we decided on Pajares (Valgrande-Pajares, to give it its full name). Pajares is the original Asturian ski resort (seems funny to call it a resort, in Spanish they’re called estaciones de ski, ski stations: resort seems a little grand). It’s bigger than Fuentes de Invierno, even has a brace of hotels/hostels. As we drove up there Pompeyo told me that the first time he went there was in 1986, when there was only one charlift (wooden slatted chairs) and a ton of button lifts.

It’s popular, on a good weekend it’ll be packed full of folk. Being Spanish, of course, they mainly arrive a little late so as we got there at 8:45am we had the pick of parking spaces. The lifts opened at 9 and there was a gaggle of kids in matching ski-club outfits ready to go up that we had to negotiate. Unfortunately the ski-club yoot had a competition going on so one of the pistes (the best one according to Pompeyo) was shut.

As we started, the weather wasn’t too bad, a bit windy up top because it’s much more exposed than the other ski resorts I’ve been to here. We enjoyed powdery hard pistes (refreshing after a couple of trips with spring wet snow).

frozen ski pole

Is this a red or a blue?

After a couple of hours the clouds came down and we skied on in very poor visibilty. At times the tiny snowflakes were driven hard into our faces by the wind, and the combination of that, and the ice forming on our goggles meant that on a couple of occasions we really had to work hard to figure out where the hell the piste went.

Another entertaining difficulty was that the ice on the piste markers made them all the same colour (I don’t think it was my colour blindness). So I have no idea what colours the pistes were. The majority are either red or blue, but they’re wide and smooth so they’re easy reds (even the last one which we did with zero visibilty).

All in all a good morning. We bailed as the weather closed in, three and a half hours of skiing (€16 for the half day pass) and were home by 1:45. According to the web site there’s a bus we can get up to Pajares so I’ll have to go up there with Liz at some point.

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Can-you-ist

We had planned to go on the Friday, but due to the rain we postponed it for a day and so on Saturday we poled up in the bus to Ariondas (gateway to the Picos) ready to do a descent of the river Sella by canoe. A few thousand other people had the same idea.

The descent of the Sella is a classic of Asturian tourism, it’s also what they do for an international canoe race the first Saturday in August, when Ariondas becomes a bacchanalian nightmare (or a really good weekend out, depending on your tolerance for drunks).

It’s also really easy, there’s no white water, just a couple of slightly faster narrow stretches in the 16Km run. We set off amongst hundreds of others in similar plastic, non sinkable, practically indestructable brightly coloured canoes, our belongings in a white plastic tub at my feet.

It was really nice, not too hard, although after 10km we could feel it in the arms. There were plenty of places to stop for a picnic, and most of the Spaniards opted for a couple of them where enterprising folk had set up speakers (for summer Europop) and served cider. We, on the other hand stopped at the quieter stretches.

It was a good choice, to postpone from the Friday, becuase the weather on the Saturday was glorious. The steep limestone mountains gave us a nice landscape to look at and the antics of the less able canoeists gave us a laugh. We only had one issue, when, with my view blocked by Liz, I paddled us straight onto a rock in one of the faster sections, leaving us teetering. I had to get out and push.

Great fun, and available all year, they provide wetsuits in the winter though.

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Before the summer timetable at the academy I’m working in, I was able to head to the swimming pool for their opening at 9am. Now I have classes at 10 so we had to pick a different time. Fortunately I’ve got a decent break between morning classes and evening. Even so I was a little wary, it’s the summer holidays, would the pool be full of yoot? Would we get a decent swim?

I needn’t have worried. We went to the pool in Parque Oeste (West Park) and because it was after 11am the outdoor pool was open. They have two 50m pools, one inside and one outside. And there were only two lanes in use, and a half dozen sunbathers lying around the edge of the pool. As soon as I dived in I realised why. The water was a tad chilly, we were only in July and I guessed it would warm up.

Now, the water’s a lot warmer (well a couple of degrees, very important degrees) and there are a few more people, so many that Liz and I have to share a lane (with each other!) Still, the outdoor pool is fantastic, crystal clear. It feels like a private pool, there are so few folk. The lifeguards have the easiest job in the world, because almost all of the swimmers are proper swimmers, no old ladies three abreast yakking, last time we went there was only one chap who wasn’t doing crawl, and that’s because he was with his two sons. There are plenty of other pools in which messing about is the norm, and of course, there’s the sea too, so it’s really nice to have a place where you can actually get your head down and just swim, without worrying about collisions or splashing the blue rinse brigade (giving rise to the immortal Halifaxian quote: Oy, we don’t need no channel swimmers around here).

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Salty

So, with the weather being nice, we wandered to Gijón this morning for a swim. Here to be exact. View Larger Map

It was lovely, the water was 21C and the beach was packed but civilised.

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To Lancashire

So, we went to Lancashire today, on the bikes, and tried the longest continuous incline in England, at Cragg Vale near Mytholmroyd. It was pretty chilly.

<a href=”http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/halifax/166901497″ mce_href=”http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-kingdom/halifax/166901497″>To Lancashire!</a><br/><a href=”http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-kingdom/halifax” mce_href=”http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-kingdom/halifax”>Find more Bike Rides in Halifax, United Kingdom</a>

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