17. day at 05/10/2022 from Montefrio to Alfarnate, (day: 59,6km / overall: 1028,8km)

After a long breakfast at the gym we started on the last but not one stage. It was almost 60km and had again about 800 altitudes. They are concentrated mainly to one huge uphill. In the morning Adrian joined again for almost 20km. He wanted to keep his time buffer and make anything possible for Hervé to get his placement. So, it was obvious that the placement of the race was not completely fixed. Also at the women it was getting interesting. Elena speeded again, because she hoped to get a chance for the first place, which Edith currently had. Yesterday Edith humbled to the finish line in very bad shape. I just tried to keep up with the faster one in the morning, watch it and try to continue my speed as much as possible. Meanwhile you knew how the different runners planed their daily race and where they ran faster or slower. After 20 km we had a short uphill, Adrian slowed down and I continued on my own. After I only saw runners from the first group. A huge amount I caught before we crossed the city of Loja. As I heard later, some of the runners had problems to find the course there. In Loja we saw the first traffic sign to Málaga. Only 85km left! Just after Loja we passed our 1000km mark and shortly after I saw somebody marking the course. First I was confused, since I did not suspect to catch the marker of the group. When I came closer, the mystery got solved. It seems that there where some discrepancies and Gilles tried to correct, so nobody get on the highway to Málaga. He told me that I just had to follow the street for the next 17 km. At this point I already had done a huge part of today's uphill. Starting from Loja we had to run almost 25km only uphill. Well, as usual – with a slightly up and down on top! When we reached the top we also entered the region of Málaga, so it was coming closer and closer, even we did not see the ocean yet. It was still covered by some hills. Just before the finish line I get wet feet. The street was going though a small water stream and in the sink as about 5cm of water. While I just went through, some other runners took their time to balance on the stones to keep dry feet.

Today's finish was in a very idyllic camping area. So in the end we had everything together again, without long walking between eating, sleeping, etc..

Results:

Fotos of the day:

Links:

Report at Running.bzh(pdf)
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