The Travelling Teacher: El Salvador

Hello everyone!

May 19-21

Running is a big thing in El Salvador, with events and races happening most weekends. One I had spied for a while was a trail run in the north of the country, in a town called Ataco.

Not a Stairway to Heaven!

Ataco in Google Translate is 'attack',
making this the 'Ultra Attack' race...

Sitting towards the northern end of the Ruta de las Flores (Flower Route), Ataco is a lovely spot which I have visited once before. Ultrataco, as the run is called, takes in the cobbled streets of its town centre before sending a runner out into the lush, green surroundings.

A bit longer than two hours in Friday afternoon traffic

Bougainvillea on the run

Sounds alright so far, doesn’t it? A nice weekend away in a slightly cooler climate (Ataco is about 300 metres higher in altitude than Santa Tecla) and an exploratory run.

View from our lovely AirBnB - thankfully, we
didn't have to run in those mountains

Ataco seems to have adopted cats as their logo...and
Ataco has 'cat' written backwards in its name!

This possibly explains the relative lack of training I did in the weeks leading up to Ultrataco. I was running a 15 kilometre route, and I know I can do that. Hannah and I actually did a half-marathon in the city at the end of March.

Most of this half-marathon was on the hard shoulder of a main road

The race was called 'Carrera de los Heroes',
which raised awareness of and funds to fight child cancer

This run was going to be different, though. It’s a trail run. Mostly off-road, undulating, and cutting across terrain you wouldn’t usually see if you visited Ataco.

Easy to roll your ankle when running on this

Views to west gave sights of the 'Impossible' national park

We had picked the 15 km option, rather than something ridiculous like the 33 km or 55 (!) km runs. Other friends were coming up to either do the 15 km or 6 km run. As the run was on Sunday, we spent Saturday not really moving much aside from walking the dogs.

I bought this shirt, which I had seen in October and
had non-buyer's remorse about ever since

The dogs couldn't solve a Sherlock Holmes mystery
with the rest of us, so contented themselves with dozing

Pizza is always a good carb-loading, delicious choice

Our run was to start at 6:30am. The temperature wasn’t too hot at this point, though I was already feeling sympathy for the 55 km runners who had only started at 5am. They would be finishing in the middle of the day in very hot conditions.

The six of us before starting our runs

The only ambition I had for this was to finish and enjoy the route. It started nicely, with a gentle upward slope on the cobbled streets taking us south through the town. Lots of people were running this distance, meaning it was quite cramped at the start.

The starting point - it did start on time!

Bottleneck

The number of people thinned out as the route started going uphill as we left the town. Already some people were walking, which was going to result in their race taking quite a long time. Running alongside coffee fields and through farms took us into beautiful, peaceful hills.

The road out of Ataco

A wide variety of colourful foliage brightened parts of the route

The mention of hills is pointed. I knew that the distance was 15 km…and also knew that there was a significant amount of climbing that would happen during that time. Over 600 metres, to be precise. I had also been warned specifically about the second severe incline, known as ‘Escalera al Cielo’: ladder to the sky.

The bottom section shows you the three
main inclines that needed to be passed

Escalera al Cielo

Hill one on that chart above was the side of a valley which we first had to get down. That part was interesting enough, needing to use a rope to parlay your way down a very steep, dusty hill before skipping over a stream. The man before me - sorry, the man who had pushed his way in front of me, almost knocking me over - half-slid down using the rope, meaning that it moved away from me when I stretched to grab it. I just about managed to cling on in order to slide down.

This could have been fatal if it had been raining

You can just about see the rope - I couldn't get a better
picture as I would have been wiped out by other runners coming down!

The incline on the other side? Steep. I part-ran, part-walked. It felt like my walking was faster than my running at one point, particularly when it got to a more open section of the hill which was exposed to the ever-strengthening Sun.

The start of the first hill

Running between the first two major inclines

A little bit more up-and-down took me to the sign below. At this point my legs were already burning, so I was very thankful to be turning right. Until I saw the slope. The start of Escalera al Cielo. A 700 metre path which has a vertical rise of 137 metres. An almost 20% gradient.

I'm sure the 55 km runners had plenty of other challenges to tackle

Ready to reach for the sky!

I’d told a friend that I would run up the whole thing so I started…and quickly stopped. I think I ran for ten metres, then had to walk. Even walking up was tremendously difficult. It speaks volumes that there was a busy refuelling point at the top, where I spent some time eating and drinking whilst mentally preparing to go on. Mind over matter at this point, my legs were jelly.

No one else I saw ran this part

Watermelon and a banana dipped in salt have never tasted so good

That quickly changed as the route - still lovely with incredible views - slalomed mostly down from this point. I was taken by surprise when I rounded a corner and saw a cobbled street leading into the town. Two short streets later and I was finished.

By this point I had switched to using a bandana to
stop sweat dripping from my hair into my eyes

This section included the 'third hill',
which I was able to run most of

All of our group finished reasonably close to one another. After grabbing a quick shower and making sure the dogs hadn’t destroyed anything, we returned to see the award ceremony. Unsurprisingly, none of the 55 km participants had finished. The winning time in my run was about 1 hour 18 minutes. Insane. I liked the trophies, which were a heavy wooden cat.

They wouldn't have wanted to run

Our friend Stephane came third in his category.
For a while, they said he was first...until
they realised he wasn't a female...

It was a lovely weekend away with great people, and one which we’re tempted to repeat when Ultrataco happens next year. Maybe I’ll be able to run up more than ten metres of the ladder to the sky that time…