The secret of the runner Núria Picas to overcome life's difficulties
The athlete remembers the best summer night of his life and the lessons he learned from it
Núria Picas will always remember the night of Sant Joan in 2016: “I set myself the challenge of running the two great Catalan Pyrenees crossings, Cavalls del Vent and Carros de Foc, in twenty-four hours, in one go”. In total, more than 150 kilometers that tested the physical, and especially the mental, resistance of the Catalan runner. “It was a very special night. I started with Cavalls del Vent and left at dusk from the Refugi Estasen. I ran 83 kilometers throughout the night, accompanied by some of my best friends, who took turns in sections. When I had already been running for ten hours, a helicopter took me to the start of the Carros de Foc crossing and I continued running. I was never alone, it was very beautiful”, Picas recalls.
A night like this, explains the runner, requires a lot of preparation. “I would say that only 25% of the preparation is physical, the most important thing is mental work and nutrition”. “To endure a beating of these characteristics, you have to know how to manage suffering very well, you have to know that you will have very low moments and that you will have to embrace them and keep going. Long-distance races are like life itself, there will be very good and very bad moments. These latter ones must also be there, in the bad moments is when we truly grow as people and as athletes”, she reflects.
In these moments, says Picas, the key to success lies “in the capacity for adaptation”, which for her has a lot to do with “not resisting what is happening to us and not letting it sink us”. Also, of course, knowing that “everything passes”. “Just before reaching the last refuge, a very strong storm with lightning and thunder fell that left me exhausted, I had torn my left ankle and it was a fierce fight against the elements and against myself, but I achieved it and it was worth it. It was the most magical night of my life, for the landscape, for my friends, for the warmth of the people who came to cheer me on… after the suffering there is an infinite reward”, she says.
Ten years after that milestone, he still remembers the dew on the grass at dawn and the smells that accompanied him all the way: “The smells of the mountain get stronger when you go from night to day: the smell of dew, the smell of livestock – some people don't like it but I love it –, the smell of black pine and the High Pyrenees… The easiest thing is always to give up, but in life and in sports we have to give ourselves the opportunity to persevere. Then you look back and say: thank goodness I didn't give up”.