2023-07-15 16:09:47
Calder’s Forrest Gump said that “you can tell a lot about people by the shoes they wear: where they go, where they’ve been.” Núria Picas (Manresa, 1976) opens the door of her house, in the small town of Calders in Moia, ready to go out on her bike. It’s not even 9 in the morning. “I don’t know how to live without sport or the mountains,” he says, smiling and looking towards Montserrat. He can’t be seen through the African dust, but he knows exactly where he is. It is the origin of everything, the zero point: as a child I went there every weekend. “If your parents are hikers, it helps a lot because they show you the way, but this restlessness is born of yourself. It’s hard for me to stand still. The mountain gives me many moments of freedom. In the end, it’s what we’re all looking for . Freedom is feeling total control of body and mind, escape, well-being, connection with nature,” says this member of Parliament from 2019 to 2022.
Runner “since the ice age” of mountain races and winner of the last Ultra Pyrenees, last week she was third in the 110 kilometer race of the Val d’Aran by UTMB, with fifteen and a half hours. “I’m much older than the rest, but I have much more experience and I stick to it. It’s a weapon that allows me to fight even harder than before and go faster,” he emphasizes. He doesn’t want to talk about future challenges: “I don’t know them either. I used to make calendars to post on Instagram and it was like making the Kings list. Now I’m up to date.” Happy to continue breaking barriers, he remembers well that more than two decades ago he was told he could not run again due to a climbing accident.
How did it go through the Aran Valley?
— It was a very hard race, it was a brutal beating, but I got away with it. Managing the suffering was particularly difficult, but I overcame all the demons and in the end came third, which is very valuable. There comes a time when you’ve driven 60 kilometers and it’s the boss who starts working hard because you’re tired, your legs hurt, your stomach closes because of the heat. There you begin to make pacts with yourself and the pain, knowing that folding is not an option. This time I made a very special pact that allowed me not to leave. I know I’m not going to run many more ultra trails and it was, “This might be the last one, so finish it.” He thought it would be the last: “This is already close to punishing oneself.” But then I reached the finish line, made the podium and gained direct access to the Mont Blanc ultra trail, the mother of all ultratrails [la va guanyar el 2017].
The happiest moment must be right after the moment of wanting to stop.
– Yes. It’s a curious love-hate relationship. I was running and I hated running because absolutely everything hurt: “What the hell are you doing? Why are you punishing yourself like this? I can’t stand it. I don’t want to be here.” You go through some kind of hell, but ultras are like that. On the day of the race, when I got up at 4 in the morning, I thought, “Today is going to be a very hard day, but it’s going to be a day you’ll remember for the rest of your life no matter what. Even if you fold at kilometer 10.” An ultratrail is like a lifetime that passes in 15 hours, 24, whatever. Because things can go very well and suddenly, pam, you can turn the omelette. Because it’s a constant struggle: there are very good times, very bad times. My foot still hurts, but it won’t hurt by the day after tomorrow and it’ll just be the feeling of looking back and saying, “Wow, what I got through.” This enriches you greatly, strengthens you. It makes you very happy. That’s probably what makes it so catchy. It’s a win. It is an intangible heritage that has more value than coming third.
The border between suffering and happiness, then, seems very fuzzy.
— The line is very thin. At kilometer 108 there was a 1,200 meter descent. My knee hurt so bad I had to stop, “I can’t move now.” But I said to myself: “Núria, it’s just pain. Pull down.” Pain sometimes slows us down, but pain only hurts us. If at that moment I happened to be chased by a lion to eat me, I would surely have thrown myself down. Sure, it’s one thing to have a broken bone and not be able to move forward, but a lot of times pain is just pain. How long will it last? four hours? five hours? Pull down!
You have also had to experience the most complicated face: in Montserrat, in Nepal.
— There are things that you cannot control and that happen. And I think the only thing you can do when something unpleasant happens to you is to turn it into an opportunity. Don’t regret, don’t complain, because in the end we’re just passing through and it’s better to take things with optimism and, above all, to look after yourself: today we pay a lot of attention to what others are doing and it’s waste a lot of time and energy. From the earthquake in Nepal, when we went to the Himalayas to do the Makalu, I have learned that the mountain and Mother Earth have the power to change things and we, luckily, not yet. And that the mountain doesn’t move and, if you can’t go there that day, surely life will give you another few days to be able to climb it. Sometimes it doesn’t work. The day will come. There are a lot of people who want things fast, fast, fast. And you have to be patient. The mountains, Mother Earth and accidents have taught me this. Today there are many runners who want to go very fast and it seems that if they don’t do the Mont Blanc ultra trail that year the world will end. And I think: “Hey, don’t worry, Mont Blanc won’t move.”
the last one Do you have to vote next Sunday?
– Of course. But I’m quite disconnected, the truth, and more from Spain. And I’m going to vote with a bit of a bittersweet aftertaste, because you can see that, for now, we haven’t won the battle and that, besides, we’re throwing dishes at each other’s heads. But I think we have to go to the polls, at least to slow down the ultra-right. Because if we don’t have representation, we can take and fold. If we’ve been crushed so far, imagine what’s to come.
#slows #pain #pain