It is a funny old world. Yesterday, I finished the day with my head full of negative thoughts and after 6 hours of sleep, your body resets, and everything seems to be different. Today, I have woken up at 4:30 a.m. with the feeling of having slept for ten hours, and as I had nothing to do in bed, I got dressed and took the way to the mountain. I set off with the intention of leaving behind the difficult time I had yesterday, and with no target set. I only felt like running through the mountain till the body said enough, and then, stop. I was not concerned if they were one, two, five or fourteen hours going. I had the mind in that place where we, the men, like to be: thinking of nothing, just walking or running. That being so, I was descending from the Montcaubo before realizing I got that far. There it was, the stunning d’Aneu valley in front of me.

I left La Guingueta behind and with the third gear engaged, I was on the way to the Estany de St. Maurici. While crossing the town of Espot, some croissants started screaming at me from a café, and as you all already know that I am a man with an exquisite education, I had to pay attention to them… if only I had known! I run with the croissants in my throat almost till the Estany de St Maurice!!!! In St Maurice, I took the way to Aiguestortes valley, the most beautiful thing I have discovered so far. The famous circular tour of “Carros de Foc” gets through here and my good friend Txus Romon is the one who has the record of it. I have to come back some day to do it. If I had to raise any objection to the valley, that would be the innumerable amount of flies you can find in the herbal areas beside the lakes; it is enough to say that I thought of stopping to take a photo of the situation and suddenly, I was surrounded by 100.000 flies at least (100, according to the civil government and ABC) and I had to pay a ransom if I wanted them to let me go (there was no ransom paying according to the government, no negotiation is possible with terrorists). When I got over the shock, my appetite was whetted and after eating an omelette sandwich in Colomers shelter, I faced the last stretch of the day.

Today, as I had seen how things were progressing, my first idea was to spend the night in the Restanca shelter, but as I felt strong enough, I encouraged myself to reach the shelter of Conangles. I arrived dead there, but with an ear-to-ear grin. The negative note of the day has been the fall I suffered just in the end, in the great descend from the Lac de Rius to Conangles, and now, my knee hurts a little bit. We’ll see how it responds tomorrow.

I don’t know if it was because of the adrenalin or the wild boar who snored as a Trol that slept next to me, but I haven’t slept anything today. The visit of Fer (Fernanda Maciel) cheered me up a lot, and we set off from the shelter of Malniu with that excitement. I was aware of her tight schedule, so I was not surprised when she had to leave the journey one hour after our departure. After a warm embrace, each one took each one’s way.

The temperature was good and the surroundings marvellous. Little streams everywhere, large granite blocks as to go playing with them, noisy marmots,… But at halfway of Maldriu valley descent, suddenly my right knee failed, and I saw myself with my bones to the ground. I haven’t paid too much attention to that fact until the scene has been repeated ten minutes later. I don’t know if it was because of the hard descent of yesterday, but my knee wasn’t doing well and I started getting worried. Paying attention to my physiotherapist Zubi, I put some ice in Encamp, I massaged a bit the part that joins the quadriceps with the kneecap, and I set off again, softly.

I can confirm today that going up and down the hard and huge slopes of the Principality of Andorra, is “almost” as hard as going shopping with your couple through Andorra la Vella… The sensations were awful and to tell the truth, I enjoyed it nothing. To make matters worse, I was not the only one who got run out of battery. At half-route, my GoPro also decided to have a nap.

I don’t know what to do tomorrow. Right now, I am destroyed, and I don’t even know if I will do anything or not. I only want to sleep and rest, it is yet to be seen what will happen tomorrow.

As I knew that today I would have a hard day ahead, the alarm clock of my POLAR V800 woke me up at 5 a.m., to my great regret. I had a light breakfast which consisted of a juice, a banana and a coffee with milk with some bread… and I got in motion. I set off at dawn, and although I was a bit cold, the way in constant ascent from Beget to Moli d´en Sorolla immediately warmed me up. The most of the first part of the day was ascending: Mollo, Puig Moscos, Coll de Liens,… I said goodbye to the woods and went into the paradise of Pyrenean meadows. The first control point of the day was in the beautiful town of Setcases. It took me a lot to reach there, as the so longed white and red marks decided to play hide-and-seek with me in the pine forest which was in the way to the town.

The hostilities started when leaving Setcases behind, in the shape of a hard slope till the more than 2500 metres of Coll de la Marrana. I went through a difficult moment in this stretch, and I walked for some time at more than 2800 metres. I don’t know if it was because I was walking vigorously or because of the height, but I had an important comedown. Luckily, I could recuperate in the descent to the Santuario de Nuria, and start strong the hardest ascent of the day, the ascent of Puigmal. The GR11 does not go through this peak of 2913 metres high, but according to Transpirenaica guidebook, one hiking day is saved with this ascent, and above all, the views are spectacular. The descent from Puigcerda seemed everlasting to me and I thought I would end with no quadriceps!!! Lucky for me there was d¨Arabo river waiting with open arms and my worn out legs could immerse there…

I indulged myself with a chocolate brioche in Puigcerda, and I got ready to launch into the last ascent of the day, the rise to the Malniu shelter. After more than 15 hours, I finally sat in front of a pasta-and-chickpea soup which was a taste of glory.

Tomorrow, it will probably be the hardest stretch of these days, from the Malniu shelter to Tavascan… Welcome to Violence!!!!!!

Second stage finished, and the Pyrenees finally appeared, the enjoyment starts!!! I set off escaping from the thousands of trucks that were in La Jonquera, to fight with a cork tree forest full of crossing paths in where the so longed white and red marks were quite scarce afterwards. I don’t know how but I didn’t get lost today and I had the chance to enjoy gorgeous paths through enchanted forests with fresh spring crystalline water. I have also enjoyed ample panoramic views of Emporda and discovered ancient churches and chapels placed in the middle of nowhere. I don’t really understand which kind of parishioners would go there at their highpoint. They should had been very devoted…

But everything was not a bed of roses today. After gulping an omelet sandwich and a couple of beers (the one who is above had already said that “man does not live by bread alone!”), I left Albanya town behind and I was about to go up to Bassegoda peak (a name which may have a Basque origin, Goiko basoa, which means the forest of the top). There were no less than ten kilometres of cement path waiting for me… 13:30, an unbearable heat,… Lucky for me the rest of the stage was so beautiful that there are no excuses: today, I enjoyed it to the max!! At 20:00, after 12 hours and a half of pure Trail Running, I got to Beget. Then I had to look for a place to sleep and I took a shower worn in order to clean the clothes for tomorrow. I had dinner, wrote the daily report and now, I am going to bed. Tomorrow, more and better!!!

The most difficult thing of carrying this singular route out is to take the first step, and finally, I did it today. It was the first of which, in the end, will be thousands of them. My intention was to set off about 6 or 7 a.m., but due to logistical problems I left at 8:45. I took the last look to the Mediterranean Sea and done.

The first stretch went through the haunted lunar landscape of Cap de Creus, very enjoyable and entertaining, nothing to do with what I found afterwards. The first mistake came in El Port de la Selva, where GR 98 or 93 run into GR 11 and I almost reached Cadaques… Damn it, I wasted two hours there!! I had to return and take the GR 11 back again in Llanca. The stretch between Llanca and Espolla was terrible, really hot, and above all, lots of asphalt. I was quite overwhelmed and I walked most of the time, I had no motivation to run. Luckily, after leaving Espolla behind everything changed, and when I was the most tired, I enjoyed it the most.

I did the stretch between Espolla and La Jonquera among thunders and rainstorms, but as the goal was near, I have not complained that much. Now is time to recover, tomorrow I expect a very hard day.

The trail runner Zigor Iturrieta crosses the Pyrenees in 10 days’ time through GR11 route in a self-assisted mode.

The project consists of  crossing the Pyrenees mountain range, departing from the Mediterranean Sea (Cap de Creus, Catalunya) and reaching the Cantabrian Sea (Higuer Cape, Basque Country) using GR11 route.

After going through climbing, duathlon and triathlon, it was not till 2008 that Zigor Iturrieta Ruiz (Euba, 1974) started his course as a trail runner. In 2009, he run three ultras to get the required points to go to the UTMB. In 2010, he got the third position in the UTMB, and among his best results there are the wins in Transgrancanaria, Trail du Sancy, G2H, Trail Menorca,… He also got the fourth place in Lavaredo Ultra Trail (2012) and the second in Geres Trail (2014).

The route will be carried out in a self-assisted mode. It will be neither a self-sufficiency test in which the runner will be exposed to a survival experience nor an aided event in which outside assistants will carry baggage, supplies,… He will take the minimum elements for the day-to-day experience in his rucksack and he will use the numerous shelters offered by the Pyrenees for eating and sleeping. The runner will assist himself when getting the necessary to meet his needs, this is where the name comes from. He won’t make any booking in any shelter beforehand, exposing himself to find no lodging in any zone and either make a bivouac (he counts on two thermal blankets for that purpose) or continue his journey. It will happen the same when he will have to take a detour to go to a settlement in order to get supplies.

The departure will be on Sunday, 20th of July, from Cap de Creus. The distances and the slopes are guiding, but approximately, they would be more than 800 km and 40.000 positive metres. He does not look on this as a challenge, but establishing a solo romance between the mountain and the sportsman; just going out every morning to run to the mountain, enjoy doing it as he always does, and when getting exhausted, stopping, sleeping, resting and going on. The aim is to achieve 4 legs per day, but that’s only an estimation, as the length and difficulty varies quite a lot from one another. He will take advantage of this adventure to test the new Compressport material that has not been launched onto the market yet, and he estimates to finish the whole journey in about ten days, about the end of July.

Zigor Iturrieta started going on GRs three years ago. He was fed up with training always through the same paths and he saw in them a huge potential to make use of in many aspects: the routes were duly marked and looked after, they offered a great opportunity to get to know spectacular places, and most of them were related to historical meaningful paths such as GR38, the route of Wine and Fish, or the one related to the Transhumance, very important in this area. He used to organize outings around those routes in order to exchange knowledge, experiences,… with other amateur or professional runners. But this is the first time he faces a GR like that. Even so, his sharing philosophy continues being present.

He will take a GoPro with him, to record his day-to-day experience and share it in the social networks, as if it were a log book. He will announce the itinerary of the next day, inviting anyone who is nearby to join him. For this achievement, he will be sponsored by Compressport and the Town Council of Amorebieta-Etxano.

A question to Zigor Iturrieta: ¿Why the Pyrenees?

Why? A great mountaineer once said: because they are there. From a young age, I’ve spent some days in the Pyrenees for holidays, either with my parents, friends or couples. I have walked, climbed and biked through them, and whenever I come back, I discover something new. I feel like having an adventure like that, a solo romance between the mountain and me, and I couldn’t think of a better choice than our beautiful Pyrenees, called Auñamendiak in the ancient Basque language, which means ‘mountain of goats’.