52 Weeks, 52 Half Marathons - Stage 19
Sintra-Marine Loop
Saturday, May 26, 6:07 AM
Between two Taylor Swift concerts and the final Portuguese Football Cup game, Lisbon was too crowded to host stage 19. I chose Sintra again, the mountain range where you can almost ride for 100 km without crossing the same path twice.
I wanted to loop around the mountain range, but that is more than a half marathon. I also wanted to start from one of my favorite spots, Praia do Guincho.
To get a little bit of both, I accepted the mission of running over 25km
Starting at one of Guincho’s beach parking lots
Guincho is well known for being windy all-year round, and for the protected sand dunes that regularly crawl into the road. I got very little wind and a perfect temperature, I was very lucky.
A number of surfers beat me to the parking lot, but the beach was still a desert, begging for the stamping of my foot steps by the seagulls’.
It was a hard pass, I could not add 2 extra km to an already longer-than-usual flight.
Guincho beach with the Sintra mountains in the background
I know the complete path very well, and was a little uneasy about the running conditions. I would be following the road all the time, and there is very little space to get off the road if needed.
This route is dangerous, and I forbid you to do it if not in the early morning rays of light. For all the reasons in the world, it is absolutely unthinkable to wear headphones during the run. I crossed very few cars.
It’s just us, the wind, and the morning birds.
Steady climb to the top
The route is one endless long climb for about 60% of the time. I did not expect any excessively steep climbs, but I knew that we would have no rest for the first 9 km, lovely.
For the first 4km, the road follows the valley and I peek down at the trails at the bottom. We want to go on the those trails when we get back from the mountain, to avoid repeating the road and especially to avoid the early morning traffic.
The route is “road bike paradise”, I have been on that seat before.
Sunrise is going to be mostly at our back, unfortunately
When I moved to the US, and first crossed the Golden Gate into Marine Headlands, I was struck by the resemblance to this road in Sintra. Later, several Bay Area friends visiting would have a reciprocal feeling when I drove them up the Sintra road.
The two places are forever bonded together in my heart. Both will always be home.
On the road to Cabo da Roca
Marine Headlands (screenshot from Apple Maps)
I am forever infatuated with this road. My mind traveled back in time, I bend reality, Steve Jobs style, my left foot was stepping in Sintra, and my right foot was in Marine.
My brain wondered in an imaginary portal connecting these two dream worlds.
It was exhilarated, I had been day-dreaming about running on this route for many years - A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
The whole feeling turned my climb into an endless descent, like if gravity had been inverted, my heart races again as I type.
The moon and Guincho already far in the distance at sea level, as it should
This road, just like the one in sister California, puts up a show in the front and behind us, I did run backwards a couple of times to enjoy the view. The spectacle is in IMAX proportions, impossible to capture with a phone camera on the move.
The road behind us at ~5km
We run with the Atlantic Ocean on our left side and the terrain abruptly crashes into the Ocean in little Big Sur style, Sintra style, enough nostalgia.
Cabo da Roca has its own place in geography, where the Sintra mountain metamorphoses into rock as it dives into the ocean. It is a world of its own.
It was close to a full moon, stupendous, but impossible to capture
It is impossible for you to struggle in heaven, this has to be one of the easiest climbs in the world with the free landscape anesthesia, a natural pill against any climbing pains.
Of course I had to try it…
All of a sudden I might have inhaled a little bit too much of this natural narcotic. Out of nowhere, another portal opens up to Southern California, and I find myself near Vanderberg Space Force Base. Space-X has just launched another Falcon mission and I capture it in all its beauty. Trust me, I am on runner’s high, nothing else.
The jet-stream from this airplane could not have come in a better timing or angle
Now I am feeling like a rocket, and I needed it. I want to get off the main road and into the heart of the mountain to avoid the increasing traffic. I use the extra booster’s uplifting, and land a “Swift” nice descent to reach the road Pé da Serra (love the name, “foot of the mountain”, well “Tailored” to the place). We have all the reasons in the world to be “All too Well”, this route is music to the ears. (I have three Swifties at home that went to the concert…).
The road Pé da Serra is the beginning of another long climb. Sintra never lets us down.
_How can you not enjoy the climb-
We need to keep the momentum because the first mile of this climb rises at a respectable 6% grade. We are at km 12, today not even halfway through our run, we need to fire up the second stage boosters to push us to the stratosphere.
The path is gorgeous, and I am surprised by the sudden symphony of the birds singing. It’s interesting that I had not heard chirping in the initial kms, but understandable since there are not as many trees. It’s not rock concert deafening but loud enough to make me smile on the way up.
Bird concert hall
This road is sweet for all the reasons in the world. Many mouth watering downhill MTB trails end along this road, and just as many start/continue from here, and go all the way down to the mountain foothills. They are addictive and you have them for all skill levels.
The complete climb will last for another 6km, and these… these I know them like the palm of my hand. The road is so beautiful that it is impossible to struggle, you just flow.
Shining trees
I would split the climb into two stages split at the Capuchos crossing (we’ve been there before, stages 7 and 12) coming up at km 16.4.
Since the route was too long from the beginning, I could not prevent a route overlap of ~1 mile with stage 7. The alternative was to free climb one of the most difficult peaks in Sintra - that will have to be for another, shorter, run.
The summit, at km 18, comes too fast,
We can see the ocean again too the south. It’s all downhill from now
It’s bitter sweet at the top. It’s downhill from now on but we will be saying goodbye to the mountain again. A few years ago they chopped down many trees - invasive species, they say - and the landscape changed drastically, I was furious. Sintra calmed me down with the passage of time. It heals faster than my MTB rashes.
Behind us, there is nothing but beauty
It is very hard to capture how steep the mountain is beside the road. Much of the enchantment arises from the thousands of trees plummeting down the hills. I fail to get a good shot at it, no picture is up to the task.
Keep on trying, iPhone
Our next milestone is at the village of Malveira da Serra. This is is were my initial plan with Komoot would guide me down to the bottom of the valley so that we would not repeat the initial road coming out of Guincho.
This cobble stone ramp “broke” my back many times while I climbed it on my road bike years ago - today I got even going down.
From Malveira, two roads diverge to the south, one to Guincho and the other one direct to Cascais. They go parallel, and leveled. Take my word if you want to make a cool car advertisement. shoot a video of the car from the other road as you speed downhill, and you got yourself a winner. I have shot that video hundreds of times in my head while driving here, and I always have a desire to buy the car that is going on the parallel road - you have one customer.
Komoot got me in trouble, the trails that I had picked to submerge down the valley were private. Well, there was gate, and it was open, but there was also a dog barking further down the trail. I did not want to find out.
I had to stop, go down, and back up to try to navigate my way into the valley.
Eventually I was successful, but not before having to run longer than I had wished for, on a road that was now too busy.
The hidden trail
I was rolling very fast, one of those running moments that are puzzling. Sometimes you think you are flying, and the watch shows a sluggish pace. On this trail I thought I was going slow, but my watch showed a consistently fast one - I took it and pushed it.
Komoot ruined it again. I was hoping to go all the way to Guincho and arrived at a dead end. Another minute looking at the map, and finally, unfortunately, we need to climb back to the main road. You now have the map.
Arriving at the finish line
To get to the finish line, we use a rewarding wooden walkway in the middle of the spicy dunes. The scent in unmistakable, not yet in its full glory, but it’s already there. This remarkable aroma spikes in its full power from slow cooking of the dune vegetation under a blazing sun. Like in… “August”.
These have been the easiest and most pleasant 25 km of any of my runs. What a journey!
Enjoy your runs!
-APF
