Madeira and the Azores

"Talent is a factor, but training and discipline is what truly defines a person's success." - Ahsoka Tano

This past week our family visited Madeira Island where I ran the Madeira Island Ultra Trail (MIUT) Marathon.  

This was our first time back to this part of the world since our trip to La Palma and Gran Canaria in 2018 where I ran Transvulcani. 

Madeira is a Portuguese island about 500 miles north of the Canary Islands and 600 miles west of

Sete Cidades (Azores)

Morocco.  I became familiar with it, because they have an ultra marathon festival.  Amy also has a friend that had visited recently and highly recommended it and as luck would have it, the race coincided with school break for the kids.  In short, it checked all the boxes.  

Late last year I began tracking flights and when they dropped in price in October, I jumped on board.  Once again, as luck would have it, our 4 hour layover in the Azores (another Portuguese in the middle of the Atlantic), got extended to 24 hours.  The Azores was already on the list of places to visit and this worked out perfectly, letting us do some exploring and staying for a night.  

Jen, Keith, and their daughters also decided to join the trip, making it a lot more fun.  

A Day in the Azores

We flew out on the evening of Easter Sunday and landed in Ponta Delgada (a 4.5 hour flight) around 6:30am local time (4 hours ahead of EDT), rented a car and immediately stopped at diner for breakfast. The Azores is quite well priced and we paid only €18 for 2 coffees, 2 omelettes, and 3 Waffles.  

From there, we drove over to Sete Cidades, a defunct volcano with twin lakes, where we relaxed for a few hours and had lunch.  

We ended the day at Praia do Areal de Santa Bárbara, a black sand beach, on the north coast.  I kept my run streak alive with a barefoot mile in the surf with Neil at my side.  

A Week in Madeira

The next morning, we drove back to the airport and took a 2 hour flight to Madeira.  Madeira is well known as the birthplace of the world renown soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo. Not only is the airport named after him, but they actually ask who your favorite soccer player is right when you get there ... and you better believe there's only one answer.  

We rented a house for the week about 10 minutes from the airport in Santa Cruz.  One really cool aspect of using Airbnb in Europe is the hosts generally leave a welcome basket.  We had experienced this in our visit to the Canary Islands as well.  The basket usually contains a few nice items like crackers, water, and even a bottle of wine.  After another day of travel, all we wanted to do was just sit down and relax.  

Now 5 hours off EDT, we slept in to about 9am the next morning before getting started with our day.  Keith and I would get in a short run (6 miles with 1500' of climbing, there really was nothing flat on the entire island), before we headed down to Machico for the day, where we got in some surfing (I last surfed before this on my honeymoon in New Zealand in 2008). 

Some other notable adventures included a trip to Seixal to see the natural pools and another black sand beach, downtown Funchal, and a couple more trips to Machico.  

Amy and Neil even got in a day of canyoneering while I ran my race.  

Madeira Island Ultra Trail Marathon 

Race Start

MIUT is a trail running festival that started 16 years ago. The marquee event is a 115km race with over 18k' of climbing.  For those not looking to be out there for 20+ hours they also have an 80k, 60k, 42k, and 16k.  

I had originally planned on doing the 60k, but that required you to have comparable results within the ITRA website.  Unfortunately, a lot of US races don't upload their results there, so I was SOL and the longest race I could do was the 42k (only a marathon lol).  You can imagine that I found this a bit silly after completing both a very mountainous 50 mile race and 200 mile race last year.  But anyways, this 42k (with 5000' climbing) wasn't for the faint of heart.  

With the race being in April, I had not done too much trail running yet this year.  Coupled with helping my friends train for Boston, I definitely could have used a little more climbing going in.  

The 42k race had an 11am start time from a park named Monteiro in the town of Monte, ~2k' above sea level.  

I pushed my way up to the front 15% hopping to not get blocked in early.  As the race started we all took off trying to convince ourselves we were on runnable terrain.  After about .2 miles, pretty much everyone (other then maybe the front few) moved on to hiking mode.  

At this point in my running career I have done a lot of races; nearly 200 trail or road races.  I am not sure I have ever encountered a grade this steep and especially not at the very beginning of a race.   The first mile included 941' of climbing (17.8%) and this didn't slow down at all for another .8 miles.  

Finally, at mile 3 we got a reprieve after 2300' and were rewarded with a short downhill on fire road.  Next was another 3 mile grind that got us up to our high point, 4800', before we started a slow descent.  With over 3500' of climbing on my legs in jut 6.5 miles, I felt like I had taken a beating and them

Near Ponta da Cruz

some.  

A majority of the race after this was narrow muddy single track.  The biggest mistake I made the whole day was footwear.  I had elected to stay with my tried and true racing flats (Saucony Fastwitch 9) that were absolutely horrible in the soupy mud.  I have a pair of New Balance SuperComp Trail which would have been much better in this terrain. 

The race had three aid stations at: 14.2k, 22.6, 27.7k.  I pretty much ran through the first in an attempt to find a groove.  At the second I stopped and had some dark chocolate and two cups of coke and at the 3rd had another cup of coke.  

A Toast to Madeira

The last 10 miles of the race were pretty interesting.  Slightly rolling hills on narrow single track with three steep descents mixed in.  I was finally able to find a rhythm (minus the 872' muddy descent in mile 18) and started passing people again.  

There really was no bad view on the entire island.  It was just how much above sea level that you were.  

With about a mile to go (still 700' above sea level), I reached the road and the finish line was in view.  I had hoped that I had a nice easy switchback which was quickly dashed as I was routed onto a staircase down to the beach.  The final 300 yards was right on the boardwalk and I was so happy to have completed this race.  

-- 26.2 miles -- 5:05:10 -- 11:38 / mile --  

This was my 46th race of marathon or longer in my 4th country (others are US, Iceland, and Spain).

Big shout goes out to my family and Jen / Keith / family. All and all a great trip to a pretty awesome location. 

Where should we go next?

- Scot