Planning and executing a very special project

There were two key things my husband and I had to do, the first was to plan the route, the second was to source accommodation. Sounds straightforward enough. But as we often say, this is Spain, and we had a dog.

After a few skype calls with Julia (who is nomadic and therefore moves location quite often) we confirmed that Julia would run 25 kilometres a day, for 5 days, and rest for 1 day, and then another 25 kilometres for 5 days etc until the end. The timescale determined by her birthday, 12th May, so the start date logically would be determined by that.

So during the months of July and August 2017 Jack started planning the route. Originally Julia said the start would be from Santander and quite quickly Jack said not Santander, but better Suances to the west, much smaller, and easier to manage. So according to Google (who we became very good friends with) it was cerca 1100 kilometres between the two places. It wasn’t easy. But quite quickly decisions started to be made. We must avoid large cities. So the route would take us through rural Spain. Smaller roads, national roads. We couldn’t go onto a motorway anyway even if we wanted to!

Finding logical places to end the day’s run became challenging. Sometimes it looked like we were going to plan days of say 23kms then another of 27kms, but this was just iteration 1 and it was a learning curve. One thing was clear though, this was going to be a very rural route. It took us till the end of August to come up with a route, working on it a bit every other evening, and having gaps, as working on it for long stretches of time was impossible. We were going on holiday in September for 4 weeks, so that gave us a natural deadline plus we decided to check out the start point of Suances as we were travelling to Asturias, and Suances is in Cantabria, and they are neighbours. One of the plans was to post the route and the accommodation on the project’s website so that people could see where Julia was and where we were staying. I think we came up with a start date at that time too, which subsequently got changed.

We went on holiday and learned a thing or two. Some of the national roads in Spain are like motorways (one stretch between Córdoba and Jaén in particular was scary), and we also went to Suances, got some photos for the project website and decided it was a good place to start from. It has a lighthouse which would serve as a launch point.

Upon returning from holiday the route got remastered, avoiding national roads if there was a credible alternative. Julia also thought if there was a track, she could put her socks on for that part if necessary. So route 2 emerged and it was longer… by 3 days if my memory serves me right.

Then the process of booking accommodation started. That was more my job but Jack gave his opinion and chose some places too, it all had to be a team effort. That was also a challenge. A challenge from lots of perspectives. One was that we needed to choose dog friendly accommodation, which narrowed our options. And we also needed to choose accommodation that we could stay in for 1, 2 or 3 nights. We decided early on that logically we had to keep moving but when we crossed a rest day we looked for accommodation for 3 nights, which would enable us to have a break and a proper rest. Checking in and out of hotels every day or two takes time and energy. This meant that sometimes we deliberated and argued/discussed the best option, to travel back to the start point 50 kms or more or what?

In reality the decisions were often made for us, accommodation in rural parts of Spain in March, even April wasn’t abundant and we had to choose what was there. But we weren’t just booking for ourselves we were booking for Julia and maybe other people would join, so the choice might be okay for us if a bit rough and ready but not for other people. But in the end hard choices were made and accommodation booked, for better or worse. There were two places we had stayed before (Villatoro near Ávila, and Montoro near Cordóba) so that was okay, and one place in Santa Maria la Mave in Cantabria that Jack just insisted we stayed in as it looked amazing, it had been a convent.

So all the information got loaded onto the website and GPS co-ordinates loaded of the start and stop point for each day, which was another learning curve, both using word press and figuring out how to get the GPS co-ordinates. I think that might have taken a couple of days to figure out… but I am very determined and where there is a challenge there is a solution!

The start date got set as 23rd March, a Friday.

Iteration 3 of the route got done in January, when Jack decided it was time to start familiarising himself with the route, he refined it as much as he could, looking to cut out any slack, improving things, and he printed out every day’s route, just in case of any technical difficulties, and I had my bible, my list of hotels so that I knew where we were on what date, what had been paid for, what was left to pay and so on. One important point to make was that Julia did not want to know anything about the route other than there was one! She was training for the challenge.

In February, our dog died. Having lost our other collie 9 months before, we were devastated. But we knew in our hearts that she wouldn’t have survived the trip and after having a stroke, it was clear she wasn’t going to survive. But we had the trip to look forward to, we said, something different and we’d look for a new dog when we got back. But the loss was palpable.

Other pre trip preparations included contacting the town halls of both the start and end points to warn them this was happening and to give them the opportunity to be part of it. And I also wrote to all the accommodation explaining what was happening and asking them to put up a poster and asking them if they wanted to/or their guests wanted to join Julia for part of a run in their area. In reality there was a lot of press interest along the way and Julia got interviewed quite a lot.

We decided to leave our home in Granada province on Sunday the 18th March. First stop was Consuegra in Castilla la Mancha. We’d booked a hotel called La Vida de Antes and we were looking forward to staying there. Consuegra is very famous for its windmills but unfortunately some got damaged in the recent high winds/tornado. But the ones there were absolutely wonderful.
The weather day 1 was good. The weather day 2 was not so good, it started to snow en route to our second stop which was hotel Real Monasterio de San Zoilo, Carrion de los Condes, near Palencia. This has got to be the most incredible place from an architecture perspective that I have ever seen.

The next days’ journey which was to take us to stay with friends in Asturias was awful, nothing other than awful. We were passing through one points that is notorious for problems with snow, (that Julia was going to have to pass through on her run, called Reinosa) . We eventually stopped in Saunces for a much needed coffee to calm my nerves. Following trucks on an autovia in snow for a lot of kilometres wasn’t fun. We made it to Asturias (near Llanes) spent 2 nights there then headed to

Suances to start the adventure as we called it. The route was set to last 51 days, 43 days running 8 rest days.

Route Summary

The full details of the route can be found on www.barefootacrossspain.com

CANTABRIA – From Suances to Santa Maria de Mave via Los Corrales de Buelna, Barcena de Pie de Concha, Arroyo de Valdearroyo.

CASTILLA Y LEÓN – Frómista to Arenas de San Pedro, via: Ampudia, San Pelayo, Nava del Rey, Horcajo de las Torres, Villatoro, Los Gredos.

CASTILLA LA MANCHA – Talavera de la Reina to Embalse de Montoro, via San Martin de Pusa, San Martín de Montelbán, Embalse de Abraham, Porzuna, Piedrabuena, Corral de Calatrava, Puertollano, Meztanza, Solana del Pino, Embalse de Montoro.

ANDALUCIA – Andújar to Almuñecar via: Montoro, Escañuela, Torredonjimeno, Martos, Castillo de Locubín, Alacalá la Real, Ventas de los Agramaderos, Montefrio, Tocón, Moraleda de Zafayona, Cacín, Arenas del Rey, Otívar, Almuñecar.

The highlights

From the journey point of view, there were lots but these are a few:

The windmills at Consuegra.

Hotel Real Monasterio de San Zoilo Carrion de los Condes, Palencia.

Casa Ana at Suances.

The god of the wind as I call him by the lighthouse, Suances.

La Lobera at Arroyo de Valdearroyo, a lovely cosy environment, very helpful hosts and a gorgeous border collie…

El convento de Santa Maria de Mave and Santa Maria de Mave (the word awesome was developed for that place)

Frómista’s many churches.

Ampudia – for its architecture and churches.

Posada la casa de las Manuelas, Horcajo de las Torres – Ángel was amazing, friendly, generous, fun. A wonderful place to stay. Can’t wait to go back. Ángel took us to see the locals celebrate “water day” and we saw black pigs, very famous for their good quality jamon…

Madrigal de Las Altas Torres near Horcajo de las Torres, birthplace of Isabel la Católica.

Torre del Mayorazgo Villatoro near Ávila. We have been there several times and they are friendly, it’s comfortable and the fire was lovely. It snowed when we were there, and snowed…

The Parador de los Gredos, Navarredonda De Gredos. Such a wonderful setting, the scenery was breath taking, it snowed all night when we were there!

Casa Abuela Pedro, Cuerva, Castilla La Mancha. Loved it. Gorgeous big house with 6 rooms. Big kitchen lounges and pool, (in season, in other words not when we were there!).

Las Junqueras, Porzuna. The accommodation was quirky in a way but good, a real connection with the past, and the courtyard area was beautiful, it was special. Maria Angeles made that place special. She even let us stay one night more and didn’t charge us… Porzuna is a working town and not touristy at all.

Casa del Valle, Hinojas de Calatrava – loads of cats and a very friendly dog who joined us for yoga. Swimming pool, and very helpful owner. The whole surrounding countryside there was outstanding. It was one of those moments where you almost want to cry it’s so incredibly beautiful. It is in the Valle de Alcudia y Sierra Madrona. Embalse de Montoro is pretty impressive too.

Molina La Nava, Montoro, Córdoba. We have stayed there before and the place itself is wonderful, set amongst the olive groves. Great food, very attentive. A refurbished oil mill, complete with machinery.

Olivara, Castillo de Locubin, Andalucia, ensuite rooms and shared areas, we loved it, lovely mix of old and new style.

Complejo Rural El Molinillo, Arenas del Rey. Little houses, basic really but the hospitality and the people who ran it, you couldn’t fault them, they were incredibly kind.

Castilla y León blew me away. On rest days we got to sightsee, and we were in Castilla y León a long time so we visited lots and lots of churches and castles.

And the people we met along the way, the people who stopped to ask if we were okay or did we need help, people in bars who contributed or were just amused by it all.

The downsides

The cold.
The rain.
The snow.
The wind.

For us it didn’t matter so much but the impact it had on Julia was immense.

Not getting to see a lynx (Julia, Jack and Josie did!)

The things we learned

In the end Julia did it, she made it. But along the way there were days when the going got tough. But that’s Julia’s story. One of the main reasons we succeeded was her flexibility and the attitude that was “well, we are where we are” and we have to get on with it, and we will do it. So total self belief and positivity was crucial, and my husband’s ability to cajole and encourage her to do 25 kms every day to his designated Google maps end point, even when the watches said they had done 25 kms already… He took her to the start point each day, was with her (or nearby) every day and then took her to the hotel at the end of the 25kms. Every day. He was her Sancho Panza…

We had to adapt things. Not surprising really. But the willingness of everybody on the adventure to be adaptable was impressive. To have been anything else wouldn’t have worked. It was a team effort. People joined us along the way to run with Julia and support her. And that too was refreshing as it brought a new energy to the adventure.

All the time spent in preparation paid off. Only on a couple of occasions did the accommodation disappoint but in the main it was fantastic and people very supportive. Most of the accommodation owners donated to the charity.

And was there ever friction. Yes, but not very often.

The adventure finished with the party in Almuñecar on the 12th May, as scheduled. We were all ready to go home then . Job done.

Photographs of the places we visited can be seen on the gallery page. And us, we’re ready for our next adventure…