UHltra: Ultra Blue Island, Faial, Azores (64k, 3200m D+)

While the original plan after the S1 Trail Corsa della Bora was to sign up for the 2019 Transvulcania, I had always wanted to visit an even more remote place than La Palma and convinced my brother to head to Faial in the Azores archipelago for the Ultra Blue Island instead. Getting to the Azores and from island to island is fairly easy as there are daily flights from Lisbon to various islands, and connecting flights between each. I had never been to the Azores before and was pleasantly surprised by the mostly dry and warm weather in May. We arrived a few days before the race and thus had time to explore Faial by bike and visit nearby Pico island featuring Portugal's highest peak (the Pico). My brother had managed to injure his ankle some weeks earlier and was sporting an aircast, but, despite missing the race, still managed to do an impressive amount of hiking and biking.

Pico as seen from the Faial-Pico ferry

Just before the start at 5.30am, some runners of the real ultra distance (120km) had passed through the cheering crowd of short distance runners assembled at the starting line, and would be seen again in various states of disrepair during the day. The race began at the old fortress in Horta, and first went up and down two small hills adjacent to the harbour. I was skimping on lighting, using a headlamp designed for more stationary activities than running steep and rocky single trails in the dark, and thus tried to stay in the light cone of other racers until we hit the town of Horta again.

The race then passed the marina and waterfront before beginning the first longer climb up to the Milhafres (400m). On the way up, I passed the first aid station and filled up on water and bananas. Just 50m on I managed to take a wrong turn, but was quickly called back by a fellow runner. I seem to be able to miss turns and signs even on well marked trails, so GPS was really made for people like me.

We now entered low-hanging clouds or morning mist, so there was not much to look at while making our way down to the coast again on mildly challenging trails. Further down we were able to catch glimpses of Pico, and while shots were not as glorious as in previous years with clear skies, the race photographers still managed to capture the beauty of Faial.

After the second aid station at Porto da Ribeirinha began the hard part, i.e. 1500m of climbing over 15km up to the caldeira at 1000m. In between, I took a detour of about a km until the absence of trail markers became suspicious and I circled back to discover that I had again missed a turn, but this time with no one to call me back as the runners had dispersed quite nicely. After the aid station at Parque do Cabouco at km 35 where I met my brother who was following the race by car, I started to feel the distance and 2000m of climb so far in the form of mild nausea. I thus decided to not heroically run up the road to the crater to impress the starters of the marathon distance whose race had begun at the aid station just the minute I had arrived.

Reaching the caldera, the view was again limited by low hanging clouds, and the ensuring humidity made it very hard to see anything through fogged lenses. I also hung on to my bib which I had pinned to my backpack with only two safety pins, and thus was in danger of getting ripped away by strong gusts of wind. This made for slow progress along the technical ridge, until we had almost fully circled the crater's edge and started the muddy descent down to Levada - Cedros, the penultimate aid station. Shortly before the aid station I encountered a badly bruised and slightly bleeding runner who apparently had not been as lucky as a woman I had helped up on the caldera who slipped and fell but did not injure herself.

The trail leveled out and followed a levada for about 8km. Traffic was becoming more dense as not only the slower marathon runners but also the half-marathon runners and hikers were now on the same course. On the downhill to Parque do Capelo, the last aid station, it fel like my appendix was about to make a dramatic exit, but most likely I was just having some of the worst stitches of my life, caused by insufficient hydration and plenty of bumps over the last 57km.

I already started fearing that I would have to spend the next 2 hours walking the remaining distance, but my torso pulled itself together after taking it easy for 15mins, and I could continue with a somewhat moderate jog. I again met my brother at the aid station and determined that I could still make a sub 9h time if I picked up the pace for the remaining 7km which, despite another 200m of climb, were mostly downhill. As a picture taken at the final aid station indicates, I was not having the time of my life anymore at this point.

This is not what winning looks like

The finish line was located at the Farol dos Capelinhos, an old lighthouse in an area which had been devastated by a volcanic eruption some 50 years ago. I started to put some real effort both into climbs and downhills to cover the distance within less than an hour which, judging by the photos, was also beginning to show. On the last downhill, I managed to lose my cell phone from my backpack sidepocket and backtracked up the hill to collect it, just in front of a photographer who was probably wondering whether I had lost my bearings just 100m from the finish.

So after 8.57h, I finished 9th overall in a race which, owing to higher temperatures, humidity and more climbing felt much tougher than the leisurely January stroll in Trieste. While the next week was pretty painful, I immensely enjoyed this well organized race on a beautiful island with very friendly volunteers and inhabitants. I can highly recommend to sign up for one or several of the trail races taking place each year on various islands of the Azores.