BarcelonaAnna Comet (Girona, 1983) wants to rest a bit this spring, after becoming the second Catalan to win the prestigious Marathon of the Sables in the Sahara desert. Comet has just published the book Run for love (Group 62), where he claims to be able to combine motherhood with high-level sport.
What does it mean to win a race like the Marathon des Sables, winning all the stages in the women’s category? And fighting to finish in the top 10, both in men and women …
– It’s incredible. We are talking about one of the most renowned races in the world. Sportingly, it’s one of the most important milestones of my career. I had it in my head for a long time. I was already thinking about it during my pregnancy. Emotionally it is very powerful. I knew I was getting there very hard, as I had worked very hard, but I didn’t expect to finish twelfth in the overall after winning all the women’s stages. And he thinks the penultimate day was at top ten, in tenth place, but the last day I did not have the day and could not keep up. Every year the level is more professional, enter the top ten it would have been the cherry.
How would you explain this race to someone who doesn’t know it?
– It is a race where there is still a strong component of adventure. 250 km divided into six stages by the desert, where you can not receive help. You have to manage everything yourself. The food, the clothes, where you sleep, if you have to heal your feet … It’s not the hardest test for the stages themselves, but the management of the rest complicates it. What has cost me the most is the lack of hygiene, I did not feel comfortable. I also couldn’t rest as much as I would have liked.
You started out as a skier and only used to be in the Pyrenees. How did you get to be in the desert?
– It’s not my place. I haven’t fallen in love with it, but there are moments of great beauty, like the stars you see at night. Luckily we have been told that this year we have been lucky with the temperatures, although I have adapted well enough to the heat. Now, I prefer other places. He thinks that on the Sunday before competing he was skiing downhill under the snow in Masella. That’s what I’m close to; maybe it wasn’t the best for me to adapt, right [somriu].
With your book you explain how a high level athlete has been a mother, overcoming doubts, discovering sensations. How was the reception?
– I am happy. I wanted to make some social impact, of course, but I also wanted the book to be enjoyable. Both men and women have come a little isolated from the phenomenon of motherhood in some respects. Many women tell me that it would have helped them to have this book 10 or 15 years ago.
In what sense? That there was only one conception of what it means to be a mother, and not enough research has been done on how a woman can compete once she is a mother?
– More than little research, which is not much; I would say we haven’t talked about it much. It is poorly standardized. Because we don’t have as many cases of women who have continued to compete after childbirth, we don’t have as many studies, but it’s becoming more and more normal. It is still surprising that a mother wins a race. And when it all happens, everyone stands out. On the one hand it makes you feel good, but there is also another that stings you. When they won the Marathon des Sables, they said so on the podium. And I thought to myself, maybe it wasn’t the most remarkable thing at the time.
A case of masculinity, because the cliché was that the mother stayed at home?
– Maybe there is a sexist part, in the fact that the woman cares for children, but others are surprised because the general idea was that after childbirth a woman would no longer have a young body to continue competing, when in fact women who have been mothers can become better athletes after the body adapts to pregnancy. There is a lot of general ignorance about the subject. I have more and more companions who have been mothers and are at the best moment of their career. More research is needed, however, because once a female athlete folded, she was once a mother.
How do you deal with the rest of the season?
– In the spring I don’t want to compete much to recover for the summer, when I have three strong tests in Italy, the Aran Valley and the Montblanc classic, and then think about the November World Cup in Thailand.
