OnSunday 15 August 2021 at 7 p.m.Gran Canaria time, Luca Papi and Clair Bannwarth completed the incredible feat that we had anticipated (LINK PREVIOUS ARTICLE): crossing the Spanish island with the aim of retracing the 5 historic routes of the Trans GranCanaria in succession (LINK), and taking home a race of 1300 km.

The journey, which started on 31 July, was exciting and lived at 80km a day with 3000D+ daily, we interviewed the ultra marathon runners to find out how it went.

NBS: Hi Luca, hi Claire! Firstly, how are you?

Luca: We’re fine! I’m a little tired but calm.

NBS: What were the main differences between this year’s GranCanaria Non Stop challenge and the Ultimate Challenge 2020?

Luca: This year we enjoyed less support but it was less hot and above all, unlike in 2020, there were two of us. We supported each other and when you meet someone who has the same pace and goals as you, everything becomes easier.

NBS: Compared to 2020, you have also made different strategic choices.

Luca: Yes, that’s true, and we also made some choices during the challenge. At the beginning we were supposed to finish this trip in 20 days, but in the end for a whole series of reasons we had to reduce it to 15, so we said to ourselves “how do we do it?”.
We decided to complete all 5 tours of the island but adapting them to the time we had: we did the first tour in 72 hours, so we decided that all the other 4 tours would take the same amount of time. This meant that we had to make some small cuts to the routes, each lap became 210/240 km long, and we replaced some sections that would have been too dangerous at night with road sections. The end result is almost 1,200 km with 45,000 D+.

NBS: What did you enjoy most about this trip?

Luca: The landscapes and the people, who turned out as always here in GranCanaria, to be exceptional. I enjoyed sharing all this with Claire. It is not obvious to meet someone with a profile so similar to mine, we have practically the same distances, we hardly ever had to wait and we were tired together. We have the same pace, the same ratio of running to brisk walking, similar recovery times and the same need for breaks. We slept about 4 hours a night and took a break between runs around the island.

NBS: Claire, what do you want to tell us about this trip?

Claire: It was a great adventure, tough without being tough! I had never done such a long distance before and it was a great experience.

NBS: Have you had moments of crisis?

Luca: No real crises, but one night 40 km after the start of lap 4 we needed to sleep, it was very cold and we could not find a suitable place. When you are so tired and you don’t find a place to rest, these are not good moments. Quando sei così stanco e non trovi un posto dove riposare, non sono bei momenti.

NBS: Evaluation of experience?

Luca: Definitely to be done again, maybe not here, but it could be that in the future he will do something similar again somewhere else.

NBS: A funny anecdote?

Luca: 4 days after the start a seam on my shorts started to hurt between my legs and after a while it became unbearable. I opened the crotch of the trousers with a knife and started to run basically with the skirt on, hoping it wouldn’t be too noticeable in the photos

During the 15 days and 1200 km Luca Papi and Claire Bannwarth travelled, they were supported by the NBS devices, without ever having to think about strings.

Ph. Janira Ojeda

FB: www.facebook.com/Janira-Ojeda-Photography-103074628481146/