Pájara no, pajarón (sudden collapse)

Yesterday I ran the “Trail du Confluent” (13km), a lovely countryside race in Pinsaguel which I had already run last year. I had one of the worst experiences ever while doing sport, if not the worst. I suffered what in Spanish we call “pájara“ and in English would be collapse.

From the km 4-5, I started feeling weaker and at the end I was almost incapable of running. I had only had one such previous experience cycling about 13 years ago, when after biking for 60km we made a pause and my cousin Unai had to literally push me on my bike from his for over 10km back to home as I could not cycle anymore.

These collapses happen from time to time to runners or bikers, and to avoid them it is recommended to eat and drink well before and during the race. I ate and drunk but I guess it was not enough. Other possible causes could be:

• I was not well-trained, having only ran since the last marathon few days this past week.
• I did not sleep well.
• I started too fast (having compared last year figures with yesterday’s, after 3 kilometres I was almost 2 minutes faster this year, while at the finish line I was 14 minutes slower).
• The weather was extremely hot making us lose lots of liquid.

Heart rate during the race.

In fact, during the race and feeling already weak and underperforming I noticed that I was not the only one in such low condition. Last year with 1h22′ I came in 103th in the end (among 237 finishers), this year the 103th needed 1h32′ (the winner also need 1h compared to 56′ last year). With my disastrous time, 1h36′, I came in 141th of 254 finishers.

Nevertheless, it is not worth it to worry much about it. This is sport: there are days for glory and days of wandering around like an underdog. Continue training, sleeping, drinking and eating well and the next race will be a different story.