GR11 in 12 days: Fernanda Maciel's self-sufficiency journey
Pyrenees and mountains 📩
Here 🔥There are those who dream of an FKT and those who simply need to move fast and light to feel at home. Fernanda Maciel chose the GR11 for that: 12 days and 12 hours from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay, alone, with just enough on her back and without a van following her in every valley. She tells the story in a conversation with Jordi: an athlete who was an environmental lawyer and who made the Pyrenees her school of endurance and humility.
The full story was shared in the Jorditoms' podcast channel "Footprints on the Mountain Podcast with Jorditoms and Javier "We have collected the most valuable insights from the conversation here.
Who is Fernanda Maciel and why did she choose the GR11?
An environmental lawyer by training, she gave up her career to devote herself to trail running. She settled in the Pyrenees more than a decade ago and started competing in ultras there. For her, running the GR11 was not a textbook FKT, but an inner journey: "I didn't want a motorhome behind me, or cameras, or a team watching me. I wanted zero stress and maximum connection". [👉 See minute 00:00 of the video]
Fernanda defines herself simply: energy, courage, movement. He doesn't talk about records but about style: "my thing is not to run a parallel race; it's to pass where others walk, but running, because that's how I feel the mountain". That's why he also decided to self-sufficiencyI didn't want cameras, or schedules imposed by a crew, or the logistics that turn a crossing into a shoot. I wanted zero stress and maximum connection. That decision conditions everything else: how you eat, when you run, what weight you take on, how you digest fear.
Scheduling strategy: running at night
Summer storms in the Pyrenees set the pace. Fernanda started out at midnight and then at 2-3am, stopping mid-afternoon to avoid lightning and heat. At night she felt cooler and more focused, although at the cost of getting lost more often. [👉 See minute 38:49 of the video]
The timetabling strategy was surgical and very Pyrenean. On the first days, he left at midnight; later, at 2-3 a.m.in order to be able to stop mid-afternoon and dodging the summer storms that blow in when the day is already heavy. At night, she says, she is cooler and her head focuses better; she moves at a steady pace, even if it forces her to running with a headlamp and to get lost more than a few times.
When the Pyrenees are illuminated by lightning
In a village he was warned of a maximum level storm. It was 15 km to the shelter and there was nowhere to stay. The official report says "stay indoors"; the mental map says "I have 15-18 km to go and there is nowhere to sleep here". In this tug of war, the decision is a practical one: poles folded inside the rucksack not to be a walking lightning rod, low profile, clothing that covers and a variant per track to negotiate paths that have become torrents. "I was scared, very scared. [👉 See minute 43:39 of the video]
From plan A to the actual plan
The Plan A lasted a breath. I wanted a solid start to 90 kmThe mountain - and a stomach for it - is a good place to start. The mountain - and a stomach with diarrhoea from unfiltered water- reminded him of the obvious: the plan is always the first to fall. The day 2 stayed in 46 km. It cancelled bookings, stopped pursuing an agenda and embraced a very voyage logic: sleep where you can sleep and eat what you can eat [👉 See minute 27:04 of the video]. The first day, moreover, was a catalogue of strange cramps: neck, hands, diaphragm. He says it without epicness, almost with tired humour.
Eating for self-sufficiency
Eating, in this context, is real food. Sandwiches in the fanny pack so that the weight is not all on your back; chocolate as a refuge; electrolytes so as not to be emptied by sweat; BCAA with glutamine to keep the muscles and the immune system upright [👉 See minute 58:08 of the video]. No race menus: here there are long hours of walking and running, technical sections that force you to chew and valleys that eat up any preconceived pattern.
Weight and material: 5.3 kg to 4.8 kg
He set off with 5.3 kg of gear, but the heat allowed him to shed clothes and stay at around 4.8. The toughest decision: not to carry a satellite device to save weight and batteries. He had to prioritise mobile phone, headlamp, watch and GoPro in contested plugs in the refuges.
The weight was a daily negotiation with the thermometer. It came out with 5.3 kg (waterproof top and bottom, a primaloft, two long layers, two front layers), but seeing the heat threw clothes away and closed around 4.8 kg [👉 See minute 30:59 of the video]. Decided not to carry satellite deviceI already had to charge my mobile phone, watch, headlamp and GoPro; in the refuges there are few sockets and a lot of rushing around. Minimalist yes, but with safety criteriaThe Gore-Tex stayed on even though it was July, because a long break in the rain can cool anyone down.
When the body says enough is enough
There comes a time when the head says enough is enough. "I'm going to faint," he thinks, and looks for cover to alert his partner and send a location. There is no signal. Two girls appear on the ridge; she asks them, if she lies down, to stay a moment and keep an eye on her. She does: she lies down, takes a long breath, lets herself stay for a few minutes. One of them offers her an energy ball of rice and sesame. That's enough to get her to the refuge, sit in silence for two hours, empty her mind and go out again the next day with a new light in her body. [👉 See minute 20:35 of the video]. Earlier, at another point in the journey, his emotions overflow: he cries with frustration and fatigue. He talks of sky-high cortisol, lack of sleep, a visual dysfunction that forces him to read marks with more effort. And then, another simple decision: breathe. Long inhalations, sustaining, long exhalations; lower the volume of the nervous system and get back to normal. Self-sufficiency is also this: knowing how to stop and having the resources to come back.
Beauty and fear in the Faja de las Olas (Wave Belt)
The best days are made of beauty and fear. Ordesa It seems to him a theatre of stone and flowers, a place he would return to just to look at. But the access by the Wave Belt that day was something else: a lot of water on polished rockThe last minute, delicate orientation, exposure that forces you to measure each support and the certainty that it's not worth taking the camera out: "I don't have a shot there, I was afraid". [👉 See minute 40:19 of the video]. At the end of the day, the "ass" descents when the legs are no longer useful are as human as they are effective. Further west, he recommends the Respomuso-Tebarray-Sallent areaShe is "very tough, but very beautiful".
Nocturnal encounters and hallucinations
Wildlife sets its own script. On the last night, three wild boars cross in front of the front on the way to Cap de Creus; the scare is shared and everyone follows their own course. [👉 See minute 36:18 of the video]. In Canfranc, at dawn, she sees "a village" of lights that is not such: they are the eyes of the sheep looking at her. At times, with accumulated sleep, hallucinations come: a road that is a river, a horse that was not there. Normal phenomena in long ultras when the body asks for bed and you choose to continue.
Final time: 12 days and 12 hours
What about the end time? Did you know that with assistance you had come down from 12 days and that without assistance there were marks in 16. He put on an honest fan - "between 11 and 16" - and crossed over in 12 days and 12 hours despite the diarrhoea, the cuts on the feet, the bad nights and the storms [👉 See minute 25:24 of the video]. It's not the number that stands out: it's the style. "I'm more proud of having tried it this way than of the result," she says.
The training that sustained her
Behind there are training with a head. Once a week, a long technical descent like Chamonix: climb ~1.500+ and lower ~1,500- thinking to toe lineso that your brain doesn't "shut down" and twist your ankle when your attention is lacking. In addition, two sessions of VO2maxand a low area runs and an output of bike strength-endurance [👉 See minute 55:39 of the video]. It's not all heart and muscle; a lot of it is capacity to decide when the body is on autopilot.
Humility and women in the mountains
"Spending hours alone in nature teaches you who you are: the good and the wild. For women, starting out accompanied and in safe environments is a path to more confidence. The mountain reminds us that we are never in control. [👉 See minute 1:04:37 of the video]
Resources to prepare your GR11
If you are also thinking of doing the Trans-Pyrenees Crossing, these materials can help you:
Don't miss any adventure in the Pyrenees!
