Friends get into the world of pain
As usual, the race took place in Nevado de Toluca and consisted of a 26 km out and back run to nearly the top of the mountain. For Sergio and Octavio this was their first experience at a trail race, which made them kind of nervous about the outcome. I was very confident that they’d perform well, since both are making good progress with their training for the Mexico City marathon in August.
At the starting line we met Chalita, Nahila and the usual friends from the Solo Para Salvajes running circuit. The race began around 10 a.m. and each of us applied a different strategy, Luis went ahead with the leading group as usual, the rest of us stayed with the middle of the pack. The first 10 km went really well, with Sergio a little bit ahead of Octavio and myself, we both wanted to save energies for the 2nd half of the route.
As soon as the dirt road was left behind and the mountain trail began I switched into attack mode. I have very good practice at fast walking up the mountain so I used this ability to start passing people, including Sergio. I got to the highest point in the route as fast as possible and immediately started my way down, running downhill like a madman and passing lots of people who didn’t felt really confident of the sandy slopes.
I got my way out of the mountain crater and retook the dirt road down to the forest and the finish line, there were another 9 km to go. It was just a matter of pacing myself all the way down, no more hills were ahead of me so it wasn’t going to be anything complicated.
I crossed the finish line with a time of 3:05:20, a very good time for a mountain race. I met with Luis and Chalita who finished about 30 and 20 minutes ahead of me (respectively), and we waited for Octavio and Sergio to arrive. The first one was Octavio, about 20 minutes after me, then it was Sergio at around 40 minutes.
Octavio felt really well but opted to maintain a conservative pace rather to burn out his energies and get bonked in the last kilometers. Sergio on the other hand went out really well but he started to have knee problems on the downhills, so badly that he had to walk a good amount of the course on his way back.
Each of us was happy about the experience so we opted to not wait for the awards ceremony and headed back to Mexico City, not without the obligated stop in La Marquesa to enjoy the excellent food. Once again we met Chalita, Nahila and other friends who happened to stop at the same food cabin where we did. We had lunch together and shared stories about past races and future plans, it was a great time with friends 
