The last two weeks of August saw me on the sunshine island of Majorca (or should I say Mallorca – not sure why we have a different spelling) for the family summer holiday. Now I'm not a big fan of lying in the sun getting skin cancer. And I'm also not a huge fan of The Court of King Caractacus, Agadoo or Big Fish, Little Fish. However, I do enjoy running in new areas, especially if there are off-road routes to be discovered.
My running base was the Protur Bonaire (pronouncd bon-are-ee) Aparthotel in Cala Bona from where you can run along the sea front to Cala Millor and beyond to Sa Coma if the fancy takes you.
However, I found the route to be dull. I know there's a headland with a castle, but the long flat section to get there was boring. Not that it stopped hoards of runners from hitting the prom every morning – but not for me. I prefer something a bit hillier where you stand a reasonable chance of getting lost!
So first things first: rather than heading right from the hotel why not turn left?
OK so you can't run along the sea front. But it does get a bit lumpy after a while. And the road doesn't go anywhere so there's not too much traffic. However, once you get to the end of the road you can't go any further – even on foot. Which is a shame.
So the only other way to go, if you wish to keep your socks dry, is inland. And the good news is the roads are flat no more. For a short sharp bit of fun how about this one (be sure to click "Show Elevation").
And then continuing further to the town of Son Servera there are more hills and trails to explore.
OK so I admit these routes aren't from my first trips into the area. Oh no – those runs included lots of dead ends and accompanying U-turns. But with a bit of persistence and some post run map study (I recommend a combination of Google maps with www.openstreetmap.org) I was able to cobble together a couple of worthy routes (selecting Satellite Map gives a better idea of the terrain).
Oh and the reference to 100 miles in the blog title - that's how far I ran during my two week visit.
