Marathon runner Albert Martens of Steinbach is back home following a month of running and sharing his faith in Spain.

Martens left January 14 for the Canary Islands. But before that, he headed to Tarragona, which is south of Barcelona. While there he ran 10 kilometres of a marathon but says he concentrated more on preparation of the Spanish Athletes In Action work involvement for the 2017 Mediterranean Games.

(Albert Martens in Tenerife)Following this he flew to Tenerife, which is one of the Canary Islands. There too, Martens ran only 10 kilometres of a marathon, due to a previous hip injury.

According to Martens, a lot of runners from Europe travel to the Islands for training purposes. He notes they come there because of the climate and the terrain. Martens says Tenerife is a beautiful island with many black volcanic rocks on the beaches as the result of a past volcano eruption. He notes Mount Teide is the highest mountain, standing more than 12,000 feet at the center of the island.

Martens notes running those marathons was not the main purpose for his trip.

"My role was more the encouraging and speaking to runners, sharing my faith of course with runners," he says. "It was by invitation from

(Tarragona Marathon)a friend in Spain. Athletes In Action had invited me to come and run, as well as meet some of the runners there. They used me for promotion and so that was wonderful."

Martens says his talks with runners were very informal; taking place on the ferry, in restaurants or hotels. He notes the Canary Islands are primarily Catholic and residents there are very interested in hearing Martens' faith story. Martens says they are also very interested in Canada, noting many of them have probably never met a Canadian before. Seven islands make up the Canary Islands. Martens says about 2 million people live there and the islands welcome about 12 million tourists every year; most being British and German vacationers.

Martens says because he speaks barely a word of Spanish, it was a bit of a culture shock being in Spain. In fact, he says on one occasion he got lost and had to ask a police officer for directions. He says it wasn't until he located the cathedral in the center of La Laguna that he could navigate his way back to where he was staying.

Martens says similar to the coaching, inspiring and mentoring of young runners in Tadoule Lake, his role on this trip was to promote and help the runners in Spain and the Canary Islands.