Re: Running the Camino in under 10 days
Nine days, five hours and 29 minutes after embarking on the greatest adventure of her relatively short ultra-marathon running career, Jenny Anderson reached her destination.
The Virginia Episcopal School cross country coach and Spanish teacher completed the 506.8-mile
Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage trail in northern Spain in record time, smashing the fastest-known trek by more than three days.
"I was really happy with my time," Anderson said Monday night by cell phone. "These are under-the-radar records. There’s not a whole lot of documentation. A guy from Finland did it in 12½ days. Every person I talked to here, I was inquiring. They said, "Not even on bikes (had they heard of anyone completing the trail) as fast as you’re doing it."
Anderson was inspired to start running ultra-marathons by Liberty University professor and running guru David Hornton, who had his 1991 record-setting trek on the Appalachian Trail broken by Andrew Thompson, a former student of his LU, in 2005. She and Thompson are currently members of an ultra-marathon team started by LU professor Clark Zealand, another Horton protégé.
Anderson started her latest journey in St. Jean Pied de Port in southwestern France on Feb. 26, a day earlier than scheduled, to try to stay ahead of an incoming snowstorm. After crossing over the Pyranees Mountains into northeastern Spain, she finished her trek Monday morning, with a mere 26-mile marathon of a run — less than half her average over the previous nine days — through the Galicia Mountains into Santiago de Compostela.
Along the way, after three days in the Pyranees, four days on the Meseta Region plateau, and three days in the Galicias, Anderson battled sleep deprivation and braved snowy conditions and strong headwinds, but never lost her resolve. She raised more than $2,000 for the International Rescue Committee, raising awareness and supporting refugees world-wide.
"It was a hard journey, but well worth it," Anderson said. "It was awesome."
She didn’t have any crew support along the trail, but was met by her mother and step father, Tina and Dan Cosgrove, who flew to Spain with her five-year-old daughter Ryleigh to witness Anderson’s amazing feat after the third day.
"If I had a crew, I could have finished in under nine days, but I was mostly self-supported," Anderson said. "I had family here and they’d meet me for moral support, but I was on my own for most of the day."
While her husband, Cory, stayed at home with their other two children and updated her blog on
http://jennyjourney.wordpress.com, she was thrilled to have her parents and daughter on hand to meet her after each day’s stage, especially in Santiago de Compostela,
"I really wanted my family to be there at the end," Anderson said. "It’s important to me that they’re there."
http://www2.newsadvance.com/sports/2011 ... ar-889848/
