II Carrera Nocturna Memorial José Zapata Miranda. Roquetas de Mar ( Almería ). 10 km.
This is an evening race. It was on 1st May. It starts at 9:30 pm. I arrived at Roquetas de Mar by 8 pm. I went to the start at Centro Comercial Gran Plaza, where I had met Andy and M. when they were in the province of Almería after the half marathon. Then, I entered the race, which was free. There were a few runners around there. I met Vanessa, a student of mine, who was going to take part with other mates from her volley-ball club but they just intended to run a few minutes and retire. However, she finally did the whole course.
After getting changed , I went to the start again and met Felipe and Mario, friends of mine who also took part at Almería half marathon. We did some warm up exercises before starting. There were around 200 people at the start. I also met Javier there. He lives in Roquetas and I´ve trained with him several times while I was in Roquetas last summer. He told me he had some discomfort in his leg since he had an injury while playing soccer a few days before. I started at my pace and soon Javier reached me. So we went together the whole course talking and I felt quite well. We went along the road to the urbanización de Roquetas de Mar as far as the first phase where there is a roundabout. There was a part of the course dark because the road is at works. Then, we went back along the road next to the sea front, which is more beautiful. We met a young man from Germany who was riding on bicycle. He cheered us a lot. There were people in the street encouraging us as well. A girl from near Hannover in Germany reached us in the avenida de Roquetas, the high street there, and we did the last two kilometres together. Then, we reached the shopping centre and the finish doing the three of us 61 minutes.
We were given a slip of paper with our time and after that we had a bottle of water and a bag with a T-shirt and some fruit. Then, after saying goodbye to the German girl, Javier, his wife and little girl, I went to a stand where I had an isotonic drink. Afterwards, I met Felipe and Mario who had finished before and talked a little about the race. While we were talking a few runners arrived. I saw Vanessa, a student of mine, who arrived the last one with her volley-ball trainer. She decided to finish the race although all her mates retired soon in spite of not being used to that distance. Actually, she finished in 75 minutes and got a trophy in her category. She was really happy to have managed to finish. Two days later, I met her at school and she still had leg stiffness but she wanted to go on running.
I think it was a nice experience. Perhaps, I could have done it under one hour but I had a good time doing nearly the whole course with Javier. As we were talking a lot, it was more comfortable. My next aim is to take part in a half marathon before summer and I´m feeling the call of a marathon before the year ends but I don´t know which and when yet.
http://personales.com/espana/almeria/roquetas/
II Carrera nocturna Memorial José Zapata Roquetas de Mar
