We holidayed in Santiago de Compostela in Aug 2018. Now it's a known thing to do at least the last 100km+ of the Camino pilgrimage, finishing there -- but nobody seemed to have done the totally obvious thing of running it in one day as an ultramarathon. So that's what I did.
Stats: about 114 km (71 miles) covered in 13 hours 15:59 mins according to my GPS watch (including a couple of route mishaps), including brief stops.
Note: I'm not religious, and this was no pilgrimage for me -- just a sporting challenge using a famous route. The Camino is a deeply spiritual experience for many, and I was anxious not to detract from that. So I made no pretence about being a pilgrim, and didn't want the religious compostela certificate.
The French Way from Lugo is the most popular, and the shortest. But getting there by public transport would have been too slow for me. Instead I chose the Via de la Plata (Silver Way) from Ourense. That way I could catch an early high-speed, non-stop train from Santiago in the morning and get back to the family in time for supper. Almost.
I found a couple of .gpx files for the route from Ourense which agreed well with each other. I also added waypoints so I knew when towns and bars would be coming up soon. But it turned out those .gpx files were outdated -- that route was now cut by a high-speed railway, and later on hit a highway which now had an impossibly high, steep cutting. So I had to make some diversions and crash through some woods, adding time and some unwanted kilometres to my trip. Hence you should not follow my route exactly! Instead, follow the latest official camino route (which can change with time).
Both times I ran into trouble, I had ignored a yellow camino arrow. So the waymarked route would have been fine. At the same time, I would not have wanted to run without the GPS track -- quite a few times I missed subtle route turns, and without my watch showing me quickly that I was off-route, I could have run many extra km if I'd not realised, had to backtrack, and (maybe) find those turns the second time around. I didn't find a detailed 'official' map of the current route, but that's what I really needed in advance.
So here's how my day went:
- 07:00 Left Santiago station on express train
- 07:45 First stamp obtained from ticket office in Ourense, started running
- 21:00 Arrived back at the cathedral as the 9pm bells were tolling, stopped watch at 13 hr 15 min 59 sec
- 21:05 Got last passport stamp from souvenir shop
- 21:30 (Reheated!) supper back at our rented flat with the family -- a physical wreck!
I bought the blank pilgrim's passport from the Pilgrims' Office close to the cathedral in Santiago and took it back to get my certificate the day after my run. But they wouldn't give me a Certificate of Distance! Even though I had ticked the boxes to say I was a tourist (not religious), I was told it wasn't a proper "peregrination" (pilgrimage!) doing it in just one day. But I did get a "Welcome Certificate" which I understand one also only gets from completing the 100+ km anyway.