Agustín Luján arrived first this Saturday in Navacerrada after ten hours running through the cold, rain and thunder. But the goal was not relief, not yet. Before, I was going to rewrite the history of the Gran Trail Peñarala, the ultra of the Sierra de Guadarrama. “I’m not the moral winner,” summarizes the man from La Mancha who redeemed Javier González, the man from Extremadura who had gotten lost on the last descent when he had victory in his pocket, after the shelter of a hot shower. So he takes the microphone and explains: “I’ll come in, but he’s the first one.” When the shipwrecked leader arrives 12 minutes later, he resists, which is a trail thing, but he excitedly accepts the gesture, a long-awaited victory. And he clarifies: “No one has won here, the values of the trail have won. “I will remember the gesture more than the victory.”
Or they all won. Because the weather forced us to cut a 105-kilometer route—it was left at about 90—that crowns the main peaks: Maliciosa, Bola del Mundo and Peñalara, the roof shared between Segovia and Madrid with 2,428 meters above sea level. Almost 300 headlights lit at midnight while the rain – and its forecast that it would get worse – made the exit even more epic, those bars in Navacerrada where you could rest after an odyssey that for some would not be far from 20 hours. Pau Capell, the UTMB winner who started as the big favorite, did not start due to knee problems.
Luján and González formed a group almost from the start, which led to Maliciosa, the only one of the three great peaks that could be crowned. And barely, because the clouds and the night complicated visibility and the leader of the race could not see the markers. The descent towards La Pedriza, which was already a dry toothache due to its inclination and broken stone, was something unprecedented. “When we got lost, we got together as a group. There was a moment when there were about 12 of us and we started going down so slowly that I jokingly told them that we were going on a hike. But it couldn’t have gone any other way,” explains Luján. That rain threatened the suspension around 7, when the first ones crowned Cotos. “We couldn’t see two meters ahead, it was much more than being under a shower. “There have been three or four strong thunderclaps and lightning.” They forced González to leave his walking sticks at that aid station so as not to attract them.
After Rascafría, with the night in the rearview mirror, Luján and González risked their race. “We have been fighting, we have been fighting well. There have been moments when I thought I was going to win. No one gave in,” says the man from La Mancha. The original circuit led to La Granja de San Ildefonso, on the Segovian side, to face the steeper climb towards Peñalara, but it was eliminated due to the altitude and the exposed Risco de los Claveles.
So the last climb ended at the Navacerrada pass; There González was two and a half minutes ahead of Luján, who did not lose hope because there were nine kilometers of descent left. “I try to fight it. “As soon as you have gone too far on the climb or some muscle starts to gain, you can lose many minutes.” Visibility was already good, but he lost his way at an intersection when he was picking up some salt tablets. “I hadn’t seen any beacons for a while, but I thought I was on the right path.” He looked at the clock and the road went 150 meters to the left. “I had to jump over the hedges, I hit some good ones.”
When he returned to the track he thought he had lost second place. “But you go first!” the first fans he met told him. “Damn, Javi got lost in the same place.” And empathy came into play, the hours shared, the task of taking care of each other at night—waiting while one changes the headlamp or gets up after a fall—in which he asked González if he had won the GTP. “I have been lucky (in 2017) and I know the joy it gives you. “I had lost the last bit, I considered him the winner.” When he passed through the last checkpoint, he notified the volunteer. “If Javi passed second, I would tell him that I was going to wait for him at the finish line without passing.”
The 50-year-old Physical Education teacher from Tornavacas (Cáceres), forged in Jerte, arrived stranded there. After two kilometers without seeing any markers, he undid what he had done. “I also didn’t know if I was going to find the path, if I was going to go straight down. Not for me anymore, in case they have to come look for me.” In total, four more kilometers. Back at the intersection, he began to shout to his friend, Jesús Bermejo, third: “Susi!” Unanswered. When he caught him, he said: “But what are you doing here?” The consolation of arriving with a countryman. With him he found out in La Barranca that Luján was waiting at the finish line. And he denied: “Let him come in.” Losing you is something that is intrinsic to mountain races, it was not his fault.”
But the man from La Mancha was clear and the three crossed the chip detection mat in the agreed order of merit after 10 hours and 19 minutes. “They are very personal decisions. I’m going to be the same person whether or not. I know what I want to get out of the sport, which is to have good friendships and be doing it for many years. I’m not going to become a multimillionaire like in football. What difference does it make to do second?” González, who cried with his wife remembering a month with 80 hours of training, has a hard time finding the words. “It tells us what he is like and what values he has. That beyond sporting achievement are people. Everything around mountain racing has more weight than the fact of winning.”
