52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 30
Surfing the waves down to Guincho
Saturday, August 10, 6:29 AM
Waves, the essence of life. It all starts with the solar radiation bathing us in the warmth of all kinds of radiation. This week, we have been crossing through a normal August heat wave, the perfect invitation to cooling down by the ocean front ones.
I have been very active on my mountain bike, and had pushed hard in Sintra weaving the waving trail lines on the day before my run. I am again hooked on my MTB outings, just as much as my 52W52HM runs. With another swell MTB ride planned for the day after, I had to pick a run with less peaks, and just surf it.
I miss the hill crest runs in Lisbon but the city is way too hot for this dude.
The plan was to glide to Guincho beach and spend the morning by the natural air conditioning. For a change I picked a route that would be quite easy during the first half, still, I threw in a few walls to prevent me from slacking.
_The ocean mist crawling into land _
We start by the Golf course of Beloura. It was certainly a promising pre-sunrise sky with the clouds crawling inland blown by the northern wind wave gusts. I could have stayed and watched that movie while drinking my cup of coffee. Again, not today, I had surf to catch and take me down to the Guincho beach!
No early birdies
The early morning cool air that wakes us up in Sintra is something that can’t be put into words. During the summer it’s always borderline cold until I start surfing. After the first steps, the breeze is like going on a surf board sprinkled by the ocean foam (I can only theorize here because surfing is nothing that I am capable of, yet).
It’s going to be a flat 3 km run until we get to the main straight of the Estoril Racetrack. The sidewalks are not too wide but adequate.
12 empty side-by-side lanes- excluding Estoril Racetrack
By the racetrack, there are 3 parallel roads totaling 12 LA-style lanes completely empty. There’s more than enough room for mandatory deluxe bike lanes.
The forecast for today is of little wind in Guincho which is just as rare as a traffic jam on these roads.
On the way to Bicesse
I take the opportunity to fill in the gaps of previous runs and populate the map in the area. That’s the reason we detour to the town of Bicesse. The landscape is a mix of suburban residential, retail and freeway access roads. Not the most interesting of my routes.
We are running with the sunrise scattering behind us, instead of the diffracted colors of the sky we will have to enjoy the long discrete shadows. They become smaller during the run to the west, like if signaling the shortening of the distance to the finish line.
Waveguide tunnel
The run through Bicesse ends up being interesting since they have made some unusual effort to provide pedestrian and bike access by a busy tollway entrance. The area is quite nice which contributes to me moving faster than I should.
I am fond of running through a tunnel shaped like a waveguide below a freeway entrance. Fun fact - if you go to Cascais, we can call it a freeway, but if we go to Lisbon it becomes a tollway. Silly and unfair.
A curiosity, electromagnetic waves, at high frequencies, can be guided through waveguides that work just like pipes taking electromagnetic energy instead of water - they frequently are corrugated just like this tunnel.
Small tunnels are fun, but I prefer open space propagation and it’s a beautiful day.
Sunrise scatter behind me
I have been making use of gravitational waves to zoom through the route and am already at the 8th km.
The relativity of running lives inside our heads. We have already established that the first km, no matter how fast you go, is always the longest. Inversely, battered at the end of my runs, at what I believe to be lower paces, I end up clocking some of the fastest kms. Mind bending paradox.
Part of it certainly has to do with my water weight loss throughout the run. I sweat like a waterfall (or a pig, depends on who you ask).
Water in need for a hot day ahead
At the 9th km, I wave goodbye to our surf bomb and bottom turn to paddle up the first climb. It’s about half a nautical mile going through a chic residential area (900m). You can tell it’s an expensive area by the height and foliage of the fences. The curling tree tops over the road make it look like we are surfing the inside barrel of the wave.
Barreling through the climb
It’s relatively easy to get to the crest, even after taking the wrong turn and having to pull a 360 after paddling up higher than necessary. At the top we follow the ridge of the hill by another golf course with the Sintra mountain range in the background. We then catch a racy one down to the Estoril football team stadium. We have to use some cramped short steps down which always makes me nervous of re-turning my always-sprained-looking ankles
Still early for birdies
I could have cut short straight to the next roundabout, but, if you know me, I had to go and follow a couple of after shock p-waves to keep my momentum. There’s something about empty football fields that inspires me. As most Portuguese of my age, I grew up playing football in the middle of the streets. That’s all we did during our vacation. I have an urge to go into the pitch and start playing all by myself - all my friends are in their first sleep wave still.
Estoril training fields - the Portuguese league kicks off this weekend
We are at the 13th km and it’s now time to “layback” and let the swell take us to the shoreline of Cascais. It’s an easy descent with an enjoyable view to the ocean front leading us to the center of Cascais. This road will be packed later in the day but it has way more traffic than I expected this early in the day. The same goes for downtown Cascais , there are already a lot of people in the streets. I am no wave hog, but I do like my zen morning-meditating runs.
Descending to Cascais and the Ocean Front
The business comes from us arriving to town by the bus terminal and the local market. As we progress through the city center we get back our peaceful kingdom. The tourists have probably gone to sleep just a few hours ago. We have been through Cascais a couple of times during previous runs but I have plotted the route to the bare minimum overlap. I have a plan to come up with a run that paints all the possible streets of town.
Triangular waves (in electronics are actually made by integrating square waves)
Today we follow some of the main avenues in town to point us to the road to Guincho. The sidewalks are wide and well covered with trees. These are indispensable already for their precious shade protection from the UV sun waves. We reached the Cascais shore at the 14th km and from here we will start a 4km smooth climb to the Guincho Olympic Stadium. Coincidentally, as I run, the Olympic marathon is taking place in Paris. Someone texted me with that information and my lively pace immediately felt sluggish - the thought of the speed of those marathon runners crushes me, they are beyond super-human.
Wide sidewalks and lots of trees
Cascais does a good job at camouflaging the climb. We follow the long and wide empty street, Avenida Infante Dom Henrique. It’s a beautiful avenue painted with green. I am getting slightly noodle legs, from yesterday’s offshore MTB adventure, and from the bomb wave excessive pace at the beginning of the run. I suffer a lot in the heat, and by now I am drowning in my sweat. My new flasks are a joy to use, but I am still not a fan of the sipping mechanism from my backpack. It’s hard for me to drink without messing up my breathing and I always feel that I am not getting enough water. I find myself designing the future of running hydration in my head (or maybe it is just that my run pack is of poor quality))
A long easy climb on a beautiful Cascais avenue
I later checked that the marathon in Paris had started around 7:00 AM my time, half an hour after I started. It is a great feeling to know that I am running at the same time that they are running - almost at half their pace. I enter my Olympic stadium around the 18.5km. We are now running on almost flat terrain with a perfect bike/running lane, slightly discolored from the UV sun waves.
The route follows another kind of track, the Quinta da Marinha equestrian center.
Arriving at the Olympic stadium of Guincho
At the 20.5km, I see the light. My beloved Sintra mountain starts peeking through the horizon, like one of those Intersellar giant waves. That meant two things, I was close to the finish line, and it would be more than 21km. This was what I had come here for. The wind starts to pick up, and the landscape to open up. We are by the Guincho camping area. I had never thought about it, but it’s a great camping spot.
We are at the crest of our last wave that is going to crash right where we want, this is going to be rad.
“Mountains, those are not mountains…” - It’s Sintra!
As we start making the drop, our Olympic track gets more saturated as does the green around us. We could not ask for a better welcome. This wave’s keg is silk smooth and just like the real ones the speed/slope increases as we get closer to the beach, even if we are approaching from the opposite end of the normal swell. We caught the perfect one from the set and I am truly stoked.
We got here before Tola, Abdi and Kipruto
At the 21st km we get off the main road to bond with nature. We are about to enter the protected landscape dunes of Guincho. This is an experience to overload all of your 6 senses. You will get blinded by the bright ocean, the dune greens mixed with the sand shades, all overseen by your majesty Sintra mountain. The wind will sing in your ears as your skin gets covered by it blowing in increasing strength as we move to the finish line. With your lungs blasting at full power, as they should in the climax, yo soak the unreproducible perfume mix of ocean, sand and costal vegetation. It’s as if I can taste it in my mouth as I drink my last reserves of water.
The 6th sense, you ask, your heart, it's impossible not to have it melt by the landscape.
Guincho Dunes
They have built a giant surfboard deck, a wooden walkway that lets us squeeze the most possible juice out of this wonder without causing any harm. It’s a little narrow, as it should be, and I am a little worried that the wood boards might not be in perfect condition and might 360 one of my ankles. It’s one of those moments where you have to put your fears behind your dreams. Jump off the cliff, and expect the Guincho wind to pick you afloat of any injury.
Sintra and the Guincho Dunes
It’s too beautiful to keep your head down, too satisfying to listen to the bass line set by your foot steps carving your way along the dunes below the deck. A multitude of leaps of faith. The Olympic marathon runners won their medals, but we got the real gold.
A beautiful wood carpet
The walkway runs to the coastal road to Guincho, the one where this adventure started on Stage 1. A road that the dunes keep trying to erase every single day as the wind blows the sand to cover the asphalt. Nature is right, in one way, this road shouldn’t be here, but it is, and I am grateful that it exists. This has to be one of the most beautiful roads in the world and it means everything to me.
Family, friendship and love.
Could not ask for a better finish line
All good movies have to end and this one of ours finishes by the entrance to the Guincho beach.
Finish by the Ocean
I would later spend the morning at the beach, an unusual slow wind day for Guincho.
The wind will keep on blowing infinite waves of adjectives to describe this spot.
Keep trying…
Enjoy your runs!
-APF
Route and profile recorded by Strava
